Resident Hellsing 2
by Keith B. Real
Summary: Six years after Seras escaped from Raccoon City, she is sent on a mission to rescue the American president's daughter who has gone missing in Europe.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One.**

The bumpy dirt road jostled Seras's sunglasses. Pushing them back into place, she glanced up at the overcast sky, thankful the sun wasn't shining. It didn't bother her quite as bad as it used to, but she still hated it.

She didn't like the two police officers she was riding with either. The one in the passenger seat kept casting glances back at her, and she could see the driver looking at her through the rearview mirror instead of at the road.

"So you are British?" the one in the passenger's seat said. "And you are looking for the American girl?"

Seras nodded; it was no big secret that the American president's daughter, Ashley Graham, had been kidnapped while visiting Europe. The story hadn't quite hit the media yet, but that would likely change.

"I wonder what the Americanos will say if you succeed," the policeman behind the wheel said. "How embarrassing for them it will be."

"Just as long as we get her back safe and sound," Seras said, not wanting to talk to her companions anymore than she had to. The more questions they asked, the fishier her involvement in the affair would sound.

The story she was telling was that she was a member of the SAS working in conjunction with the CIA to rescue Ashley Graham who had been kidnapped by an unknown group, most likely terrorists. The story was only partially true: she did work for the British government, but not the SAS. She was a member of the Hellsing Agency, an order of Knights charged with the job of eliminating undead threats to England.

She scratched her head absentmindedly, contemplating just how strange her present situation was. Being a vampire herself, working for a group dedicated to their annihilation was an inconsistency she dealt with on a daily basis. What had her puzzled at the moment was why she was running such a high profile rescue operation so far from England that, as far as she could tell, had nothing to do with the undead.

"Los Illuminados," Sir Integra Hellsing, her boss, had said when she was put to the question by Seras shortly before she left the Hellsing manor. "They're a cult of some type. We know little about them, which is why I'm sending you on the mission. Not only are you to rescue Ashley Graham, and get the United States to owe us a favor, but you're to find out just what Los Illuminados is all about and report back as soon as you can. We'll be looking into it as well, but ground recon is essential."

Integra's words were vivid in Seras's mind; the last time Sir Integra had sent her on a recon mission outside of the country had been a nightmare. She had been sent to spy on the Umbrella corporation's doings in Raccoon City, USA. While there, the virus Umbrella had been cooking up got loose, turning the entire population of the city into mindless, undead, cannibals. She still remembered having to shoot the little girl she had rescued after she had become a zombie.

The car slowed to a stop next to a dirt pathway that lead to a small house off into the woods on the left. "Is this it?" she asked.

"That way is the village you want," the policeman in the passenger's seat said. "This is as far as we go."

Seras got out of the car and shut the door. Peering over her sunglasses, she couldn't believe how dismal everything looked. Everything from the trees and the sky to the wood making up the small house seemed grey. The crows perched in the leafless branches, peering down, only added to the sudden sense of foreboding she felt.

She patted the nine millimeter Glock17 she kept in a shoulder holster beneath her blue coat. Adjusting her baseball cap, she moved forward towards the house with intention of asking whoever was inside if they had seen Ashley Graham. Aside from her gun and a combat knife, she was armed with a powerful radio, a photo of Ashley, and a crash course in basic Spanish. She hoped it would all get her through this mission quickly.

Glancing back at the police car to make sure it wasn't about to drive off, she went up onto the porch of the house. It looked fairly solid, but she could tell that whoever owned it didn't have the money to keep it maintained. The floorboards on the porch sagged and creaked as she walked over them towards the door.

She opened the door, not bothering to knock. The interior was a mess. No one had cleaned for some time and the stink of rotting meat filled her nose. Not needing to breath, she held it and walked inside.

The sound of a fire crackled from around the corner, and she walked around to see an older man tending it. He was dressed in filthy, plain clothes and turned stiffly to look at her.

As he sized her up, she took out the photo of Ashley Graham, a pretty brown eyed girl with blond hair, and showed it to him. "Excuse me, have you seen this girl?" she asked in Spanish. "I'm with the police."

"No, get out," he said plainly.

She had been told to expect some unfriendliness from the populace in this part of Spain so she simply nodded and turned to leave. Once her back was turned, she heard the man make a sharp movement. Seras spun around just in time to duck the downward swing of the fire poker he had been carrying.

"Hey, what's you're problem?" she said in English as the man swung again. The attack was clumsy and she easily avoided it. The man was shouting at her in guttural Spanish. Seras couldn't tell if it was her ear not picking up his words or if he had simply begun to snarl and speak gibberish.

He swung again only this time Seras caught the poker bellow the sharp end and yanked it from the man's hand. He lunged at her, screaming louder so she struck him in the temple with the poker's handle. The old man went down like a sack of grain and stopped moving. Looking down on him with horror and disgust, she rolled him over onto his back using the fire poker.

The old man smelled bad, but not zombie bad. The stench came from a lack of bathing, rather than rotting flesh. Something about the man's face, contorted into a death mask, told her that he had been a complete lunatic.

She picked her head up and looked into the pantry next to the fireplace. Piled into a tiny alcove were three rows of human skulls complete with assorted bones, all brown from rot. Wondering if she had stumbled into the den of a serial killer, she stood up straight when the sound of an old diesel engine came roaring through the house.

Running back into the living room, she looked through the window in time to see a large truck, one she hadn't noticed before, speed down the dirt path she had come up and plow into the police car. The police vehicle rolled over into its side and slammed into a thick tree on the other side of the road.

With her jaw hanging open, she turned her attention to the four men rushing towards the house. Another older man carrying a pitchfork was leading three younger men carrying hatchets. The old man stopped on the porch and pointed at the door, shouting something in Spanish.

The three young men burst into the house as she drew her gun. As soon as the first man turned to see Seras, there was a bullet in his head. He staggered backward, knocking the other two men off balance.

Shaking his bleeding head, the man groaned and moved forward, brandishing his hatchet. Seras fired again, this time taking the top of his head off. He fell forward as the two men behind him stepped over his corpse.

Seras put a bullet in each of their knees, causing them to fall forward onto their faces. Two more bullets for the backs of their skulls, and they were dead. The window next to her head suddenly shattered. Seras ducked just in time to avoid the thrust of the old man's pitchfork as it came crashing through. Before he could pull it back, Seras snatched it from his hands, turned it around and shoved it into the man's face.

Instead of going outside, she went to the pantry where there would be a wall at her back and removed the clip from her gun. She had a box of bullets with her, and she used it to refresh the clip.

She took a deep breath though her mouth to calm her mind. She was no stranger to such situations, but things had gotten weird, even for her. There was something wrong with these people. They were much dirtier than they aught to have been, even for backwoods peasants. The man she had shot in the head should have died from the first bullet, not staggered forward to attack.

All her ears could pick up was the screeching of the crows and the faint sounds of broken machinery from the car wreck outside. It was a long walk back the way she had come, and besides, she still had her mission.

Reminded that she had a radio, she pulled it out and switched it over to the frequency she was supposed to use to contact Integra. "Hello, come in. Victoria reporting."

"Seras," came Integra's voice over the radio. There was slight static at first, but the signal evened out after a second. "Seras, what's going on?"

"I was just attacked," she said. "A villager. He came at me with a fire poker, and then they crashed a truck into my police escort. I've had to kill five people."

"What? Are you serious? Is there any sign of Graham?"

"Yes…I mean, yes I'm serious, and no, no sign of the president's daughter. I-I don't think these people are quite human," Seras said, trying to compose her thoughts.

"Seras, I know they're Spaniards, but…"

"No, I mean…I shot one in the head and he didn't drop right away. They all seem crazy or something, but they're not ghouls or zombies." Seras peered around the corner to get a better look at the first old man she had killed and was appalled to see that he seemed to be dissolving. "Oh dear Lord, now they're melting."

"This changes nothing," Integra said. "You're a full-blooded midian with a mission. This shouldn't be anything you can't handle. Find Ashley Graham and learn what you can about Los Illuminados. It's likely there's a link between the people you've encountered and the organization."

"Gee, you think?" Seras said, making sure she covered the transmitter and spoke quietly so Integra wouldn't hear her. "Yes, sir," she said clearly into the radio. "I'll update as soon as I've got something."

"Good. Take care of yourself, Seras. Hellsing out."

She set the radio so that it would only receive, so as to conserve battery power. Stuffing it into her pocket and readying her gun, she left the house. First, she jogged over to the car wreck and found both the cops she had ridden with and the driver of the attacking truck to be dead.

The big rig had been parked in the road leading past the house and had been covered by boards and branches to make it look like a thick wall of forest and junk. Now that the way was clear, Seras noticed a wooden sign reading Pueblo pointing down the pathway.

Hoping she wasn't in for a repeat of Raccoon City, she made her way towards the village of Pueblo.

**To be continued… **


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two.**

Seras could hear a dog whining as she walked down the woodland trail towards Pueblo. Dead vegetation crackled beneath her feet and crows sang as they moved about through the bone-like trees.

When the animal came into view, she saw that it was more of a wolf than a real dog and that its rear leg was caught in vicious looking steel trap. It looked at Seras as she got closer and whined pitifully. She stopped a few feet from the trapped animal and examined its predicament.

The trap was toothed and large, much too big to be intended to trap wolves. The jaws had closed high on the wolf's thigh; its thick fur had saved it a deep cut. Only a small amount of blood was trickling from the wound. Seras holstered her gun and inched closer to the wolf, speaking to it softly.

It whimpered, but didn't fight her. She opened the trap with ease and the wolf bolted off into the woods without so much as a look back. Letting the trap snap back and pulling her fingers away, she got back up and kept walking, looking at the ground for more of the steel, spring-loaded jaws. It was clear that they had been set to catch people, not animals.

She hadn't gone far when she came across a small shed with the stench of blood coming from it. She could hear the buzz of flies and the blood smelled old and putrid, another corpse was nearby. With her gun ready to fire, she stepped into the shed and had to look away from what she saw on the wall.

A peasant woman had been pinned to the wall by a pitchfork through her face. Her feet were a good twenty centimeters off the ground, making Seras wonder just who had committed such an act of brutality. Why, was another question she had on her mind. What could make a village full of people suddenly go insane?

She would find out soon enough, she was sure. She followed the pathway down as it led into a small valley. Fearing ambush from any villagers who might have been hiding and watching the valley for intruders, her gaze floated up to the rocks above her. She fancied she could see movement in the trees above, but had no choice but to continue.

A quarter of the way down the hill into the valley, she heard small stones falling behind her. Looking up, she saw a large, round boulder being dislodged from its perch above her by a group of villagers.

She began speeding down the hill as the boulder tumbled down and rolled after her. Panic shot through her when she saw that the valley ended in with a metal door set into a wall made to block the pathway.

Her only option was to beat the boulder to the door, roll off to the side and hope it didn't crush her. Pouring on the speed, her vampiric legs got her to the bottom just in time for her to roll off to the right and cover her head. The giant rock smashed into the wall, toppling it. When Seras picked her head up, she saw that the way was clear and that the boulder had rolled off to the side and down a hill.

Those who had sprung the trap were nowhere to be seen. With nothing to do but keep going forward, she resolved not to fall for such a trick again and began walking.

After a few minutes, she wondered if she should be staying on the path. It was likely to be booby trapped and guarded, but she feared becoming lost of she went into the woods. Crossing a wooden bridge after checking it over for threats, she soon came to another wall blocking the pathway with a door set in the middle.

The door had some strange insignia on it, like the one she had seen earlier before it was obliterated by the boulder. What it was depicting, she couldn't tell, but it reminded her vaguely of the symbol medical organizations used. Perhaps it was the symbol of Los Illuminados.

The door was unlocked, and she went through. The path continued for another minute or two, and Seras slowed down upon hearing activity from up ahead. It sounded like chickens clucking and cows mooing. Beneath the barnyard sounds were that of creaking wagon wheels and muted conversation. She also fancied she could hear the crackling of flames.

Crouching low and walking quietly, she stood behind a tree and glimpsed what must have been the town of Pueblo. It looked like any other poor farming village. Patched up houses, roaming chickens, and busy, if a little dirty, people.

The center piece of the village was a large, burning pyre. Tied to a stake in the middle was the smoldering body of a policeman. Seras squinted, but couldn't tell from his burnt feature if it was one of the cops she had ridden over with or not. It would have been a neat trick indeed had they been able to drag the body here before her.

She had been wondering if these villagers might be normal. The dead cop answered her question. She was now thinking about running into the village and taking revenge; she didn't care much for cop killers.

No sooner had she settled on sneaking past the village, then a man shouted something in Spanish from behind her. It caught the attention of everyone in the village square, who dropped what they were doing and began advancing, carrying an assortment of pitchforks, knives, hatchets, and sickles.

Seras turned and shot the villager who had snuck up behind her. It seemed as though they could be quite stealthy as well. Two bullets to the head and the man fell to the ground where he began to bubble and dissolve.

There was no one behind her now that she could see, and there looked to be over twenty villagers coming towards her. All were going slowly, but some looked as though they were about to make a rush for her.

Her gun only had sixteen bullets left in the clip. She had another clip of eighteen in her pocket, along with a small box of bullets to replenish a clip. She thought she might have enough bullets to take down every villager, but it would leave her sorely depleted, and that was only if every shot counted.

A woman carrying a butcher knife broke from the crowd and ran at her, screaming. Seras stepped to the side to avoid the downward motion of the knife and drove her palm into the woman's nose as hard as she could. With her strength being what it was, the woman's head caved in a wash of dark blood as she was sent hurtling backward.

The crowd paused, only for a moment, and continued the attack, this time with two men coming at her fast with pitchforks while a young man in his late teens hurled a sickle through the air at Seras's head.

She ducked and shot one of the pitchfork men in the knee, making him fall. The other, she shot in the face, obliterating his eyes and causing him to stumble backward, holding his face and dropping his pitchfork.

Switching her gun to her left hand, she ran towards a small pathway to the left and stooped to pick up the dropped pitchfork of the man she had shot in the face. With some distance between her and her enemies, she tucked the gun into her jeans and turned to face the crazed villagers.

Using the pitchfork like a spear, she stabbed a man in the throat and shoved him forward so that he slid off the end, leaving her free to take another jab at the eyes of a short, fat woman. She could see the two she had wounded before coming back around, so she dealt the fat woman another blow to the chest which finished her.

Knocking away a hatchet that had come flying at her, she stuck another man in the gun and ran backward, the volume of enemies was becoming too great to fight off. Not one of them seemed to fear for their life beyond feeble attempts to dodge her attacks.

She made a break for the house behind her and kicked in the door. No one was inside, so she stopped in front of the doorway. The smaller opening would make it so that only one villager could enter at a time, thus removing their numerical advantage.

They crowded around the door like she had hoped, and she took stabs at the throats of those who got too close. When she heard the window break off to her right, she looked to see that they had surrounded the house and were coming in from all sides.

With a parting stab to a large-nosed villager's throat, she ran towards the window and speared an old man climbing through, shoving him back outside, dead. She ran up the stairs and stopped at the top, thinking to use the stairs in the same manner she had the door bellow.

It worked for a while. The villagers would advance and she would kill them with the pitchfork, now dripping with gore. As they fell down the stairs into their fellows, she could smell their blood as its aroma floated up to her nose. It should have smelled good, but there was something off about it. It wasn't rotten, but something told her she wouldn't want to drink it, even in a pinch.

More windows smashed, this time on the second floor. She looked to see the top of a ladder sticking over the sill. The window on the other side of the room shattered as well, as a ladder came crashing through.

She ran and shoved the first ladder backward, sending a villager for a hard fall onto his back. Turning, she went to shove the other ladder away, but stopped to stab at a villager who had climbed the stairs. The pitchfork went into his temple, but the others behind him shoved his melting corpse forward to make way.

The thud of the ladder coming up again behind her made it feel as though a weight had come down onto her shoulders. The number of enemies and their single-minded tenacity was becoming wearisome. Just how difficult defeating them was going to be had become apparent.

She ran towards a window to her left that hadn't been broken. It led out onto the roof, so Seras crashed through it, shoulder first. The villagers wasted no time in coming through the window at her, which she countered by fast, hard, stabs with the pitchfork.

She'd killed five when she heard the thud of two ladders, one right next to her and the other on the other side of the house. She shouted in frustration as she stabbed another man in the hand, sending his butcher knife clattering off the roof.

Taking a running jump off the roof, she hit the ground on her feet with a thud. It made her legs hurt, but she looked up towards a high point on the village between a barn and a fence, next to a well. She was about to begin running towards it when the sound of a chainsaw starting filled her ears.

She turned her head towards the sound as it emanated from the base of the tall bell tower next to a small, church-like structure. The other villagers had caught up with her on the ground, but had slowed down as if allowing the chainsaw wielding fiend its turn to get at her.

When he appeared, Seras was reminded of a horror movie she had seen once while she was a young cadet at the police academy, before her life itself had turned into a horror show. The man was like any other villager, perhaps a little larger, but his head was covered in a dirty burlap sack with holes cut for his eyes.

He raised the chainsaw above his head and made it buzz while he walked towards her. She stabbed the pitchfork into the ground, drew her gun, took aim at his skull, and fired. Blood spattered on the bag and the man flinched, but kept walking towards her. She fired again with the same results. Letting out a breath, she sent four more shot into his head and chest, yet still the chainsaw wielding villager walked towards her.

Tucking the weapon into her pants, she pulled the pitchfork out of the ground and hurled it into the freak's midsection where it stuck there up to the wooden shaft. The handle drooped forward and dug into the ground, making the masked man stumble to the side and lower his chainsaw.

Thinking that would keep him busy for a few moments, Seras ran up the hill towards the well and hoped to find another farming implement to ward off the villagers, anything to conserve ammunition.

There was a small shack at the top of the hill, near the well. Seras went to it and found a flat, one-handed board saw. She waved it and listened to the blade make a soft warbling sound. It would have to do. She left the shack and stood by the well as the villagers came up the hill. Behind her was another thick, metal door with the strange insignia on it and off to both sides were buildings and high wooden fences.

Anyone else would've been trapped, but she thought that if things got too ugly, she could vault the wall behind her.

Deciding she wanted some room to back up, she rushed forward and took a swipe at a man with leathery skin and a red, long sleeved shirt. The saw tore open the flesh on his face, costing him an eye possibly and he staggered backward more from the force of the blow than any pain.

Seeing that her weapon was only good for causing savage wounds, she began delivering kicks and elbows to villagers as they clumsily swung farming tools at her. She nearly got wounded many times, but backed off before any of them could get a solid shot in.

The chainsaw buzzed loudly again, and the villagers stopped. She wondered if the chainsaw lunatic was in some sort of command position, or had the villagers all decided long ago that if an intruder made it into the village, their death should come via chainsaw.

When the villagers parted, she saw that the chainsaw man had removed the pitchfork from his stomach and was none the worse for wear. "What the bloody hell are these people?" Seras said to herself as the man who should've been dead ran at her with a chainsaw.

"Fine," she said, backing up towards the well. "If being shot and impaled didn't work, then…" She waited until the chainsaw man was half a meter in front of her and beginning his swing with the roaring blade. Stepping quickly to his left, avoiding the blade, she grabbed him by the midsection and the leg, holding onto his clothes and lifted him off his feet, sending him towards the well.

Five meters down, there was a splash and a bubbling as the chainsaw died in the water, hopefully right alongside the masked man. With the big threat safely in the well for the moment, Seras turned towards the villagers, hoping to get a hold of one of their tools and then proceed to kill the rest.

For what seemed like the fifteenth time, they resumed their advance. Hoping that Ashley Graham was tied up and alive in one of the dilapidated houses, Seras steeled herself for another round of combat.

They stopped again when a bell tolled in the east. One of the villagers muttered something between the rings, and Seras's ears picked it up.

"Lord Sadler," the man said as he dutifully turned along with the others and began marching down the hill.

Wondering what Sadler was Spanish for, she quickly realized that it was a name. Was it the name of the man she had thrown in the well? No, they hadn't flinched when she got rid of him. It was clearly the bell that was calling them off.

As she watched them all make their way up a hill past the tower, the hope that Ashley was being hidden in the village of Pueblo dwindled. There was no way they would abandon her and leave her unguarded, even as a feint. Still, she felt that she should at least look over the town and get the dead officer's body off the pyre.

Using the pitchfork to shove away the flaming material, she was able to get the cop's body down and set in a hay cart. Covering him with straw and wheeling him off out of sight, she made a mental note to ensure that someone came through to recover his body.

Her search of the town proved quite fruitful. They had taken the officer's bullets, which fit her own gun, and had set them down on a kitchen table. She also found a machete, a nice light weapon she could use to lop off pitchfork wielding hands and screaming heads without wasting precious bullets.

As she tested the sharpness of the machete blade, she wondered if she was being too harsh in her thinking. It appeared as though the villagers were nothing but crazed cop killers, but her experience in Raccoon City made her wonder…perhaps these people were victims as well.

She tucked her sunglasses into her pocket and did the same with her hat. The overcast day seemed to be becoming even more so, and she thought it was going to rain before too long. The sun wasn't bothering her at the moment and she didn't want the hat and glasses to restrict her vision.

Her search also turned up a few more important bits of information. For one, every house seemed to have the same painting of an old man wearing a purple hooded robe that came down above his eyes, concealing his ashen face. Seras thought he looked a bit like the Emperor in Star Wars.

Thinking he might be some local saint, Seras's search continued. Up the hill where the villagers had gone was another shack. This one was kept clean and had an oil lamp resting on a table next to a document.

Reading it over, Seras couldn't believe how careless the villagers had been. Her ability to read Spanish was better than her ability to speak or hear it, and from the note she was able to tell that Ashley had been taken to a house beyond a farm and would later be moved into a valley somewhere.

She also gathered that she wasn't Los Illiminados's only problem. While they knew she was around and wanted her dead, there was some mysterious third party they feared even more. The note was signed Chief Bitores Mendez, a fact which made Seras's jaw drop.

If Chief Mendez was working with Los Illuminados, that meant that the cult had more power than she had previously thought. Folding the paper and tucking it into her back pocket, she pulled out her radio. Something deep within her knew that the pervious battle was merely the tip of the iceberg. That part of her was excited at the thought, but she was glad to see that most of her being still had apprehensions about fighting a war.

She dialed up Integra to make her report.

**To be continued…**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three.**

Crouching behind a dead, grey tree, holding her machete and watching the villagers do daily farm work, she felt like a monster from a horror movie stalking innocent victims. The body parts piled up in a cart next to the barn reassured her that anyone she killed or maimed deserved it.

Beyond the second barn, the one closest to her, was a large wooden fence blocking a dirt road. During her last radio transmission, Sir Integra had let her know that, according to satellite photos, there was an isolated house north of the farm. If the memo she had found was accurate, Ashley might be there. All she had to do was get past the army of crazed villagers and their ambushes.

Wanting to avoid another thirty-on-one battle, she got down on her stomach and crawled slowly towards the back of the nearest barn, knowing that there were at least two villagers inside, one on the bottom, near the back and one above in the hay loft, pitching hay down into a cart.

Up next to the bar, she kept low, not wanting to attract the attention of the others on the other side of the farm. Around the back was the barn's rear door. She didn't think she could walk inside and kill the man working before he shouted a warning. Seeing a cart with some boxes piled in the back, she picked up a rock and threw it into the boxes, knocking them over.

The man in the loft called out to the one bellow, who answered. Their voices were unnaturally guttural, but from what little she could understand, their speech patterns were normal. When the young man came out to investigate the fallen boxes, she crept up behind him and swung at his neck with the machete.

With her strength being what it was, his head came clean off his shoulders causing dark blood to spurt out of the wound. She caught the body as it fell, and eased it to the ground to let it bubble and melt.

The man above was still working, along with another silver haired man in the barn on the other side of the farm, the one with the body parts piled next to it. Seras walked calmly over to the ladder that led up to the loft and climbed it, hoping the man would be facing the other direction when she got to the top.

Luckily, he was. When Seras set foot on the boards, she rushed forward, light and silent. The boards still creaked and the man turned just in time to watch the blade split his head into two from top to bottom. He sunk to his knees; Seras put her foot on his chest and pulled, extracting the machete.

Now she heard shouts coming from outside, and noticed that there was a wooden balcony to her left attached to the barn. Turning, she could see through the barn window two villagers, a man and a woman holding hatchets, running along the balcony towards her. Three men had also come running into the barn, two carrying sickles and one a pitchfork.

She waited until one of the men carrying a hatchet was standing on the ladder before she kicked it over. It bought her enough time to run to the barn widow and kick the woman coming through in the chest, sending her sprawling into the man behind her, knocking him down.

Before they could get to their feet, she crawled out into the balcony and began dealing vicious blows to their heads, first the woman, then the man. The screamed and gargled more out of anger than pain as they died, covering her blade in blood and spattering her clothes with red droplets.

The ladder thumping against the loft made her turn and go back inside. She ducked as a hatchet flew past her head, brushing her blond hair as it went by. Crouching in front of the ladder she waited for one of them to climb up. First up was a young man who hadn't shaved in a few days. He had a look of grim determination his face, and she fancied there was a red tint to his eyes.

With a hard swipe, she cut his eyes out, sending him falling backward, holding his face and writhing. Seeing that they did in fact felt pain, she paused a moment before leaping down onto the head of the man with the pitchfork while she struck the other with the machete.

She lost her balance as the man she landed on fell, and rolled to her feet. She had broken his neck and sliced the top of the other's skull off. She didn't waste time in putting the blind one out of his misery with a downward hack to the neck.

The bloody work was done for the moment and she once again focused on her ears to try and detect anymore company. All she could hear was the wind blowing the coming storm in her direction and the squawks of crows that smelled food. Walking out of the barn, she saw that the balcony had been built to be a spot where the villagers could throw hatchets at intruders trying to get past the barn. There was a row of half a dozen buried in the wood; the two that had come at her through the window had likely been standing there.

Beyond it, the trail split into two. One path was unobstructed, while the other was blocked by a huge wooden door made from recently felled trees. It was too high to climb and looked too heavy to push. Seras decided to take the road easiest to travel and walked, keeping an eye out for ambushes from the woods and booby traps, like the ones she had freed the wolf from before coming to Pueblo proper.

The pathway took her down into another valley that had been carved into the hill with dynamite. At the bottom was a brick tunnel filled with sleeping bats that had a small stream running through it. The stream got larger as she went along before it disappeared underground and spread out into a marshy area.

Dead trees and dilapidated houses sat in the marshland before her. There were no crows there, but she had the feeling she was being watched from the abandoned homes, some of which were little more than standing walls. She had no choice but to walk forward, towards a house with a sagging roof and no wall on its right side.

Peeping around the corner, she spotted a wire connecting two charges of explosive on either end of the tiny house's one room. If she went around the house, she might get her feet wet in the soggy ground. Seras guessed that anyone walking along would want to keep try and accidentally step in the wire and be blown up. It was a cunning trap, but she had spotted it.

Her boots were water-tight anyhow, so she had no problem picking her route. As she slogged through the wet ground, she felt the tug of the mud on her feet and she squelched along, feeling confident she could handle whatever tricks and traps were thrown at her.

Confidence became fear when she heard a light thud and the hiss of a fuse a short distance away from her. She looked to see a stick of dynamite two meters away, the fuse halfway burnt. She stepped backward hard, the mud knocking her off balance. She fell backward into the muddy water, soaking her backside as she threw her arms up to protect her head from the blast.

The force of it rattled her insides hard. Had she been a human, her guts would've been bleeding and it would've have been the end in a few hours without serious medical attention.

Instead of sitting up and trying to retreat, she didn't move and stopped drawing breath. She had to grit her teeth not to moan in pain or wiggle in fear. She would play opossum until the one who had thrown the dynamite came to inspect his work. When he got close, she'd cut his legs off, pain or no pain.

When the sound of footsteps and not burning fuses filled her ears, she fought the urge to breath a sigh of relief. She cracked her eyelids and waited until the middle-aged villager's face was peering down at hers before she took a swipe at his knees with the machete. He shouted and fell, clutching his leg.

Not knowing what he had for backup, she sat up quickly. The pain rocketing though her body from the move made her want to vomit, but she held it back not wanting to waste precious blood. Still sitting down, she hit the man in the head repeatedly with the machete until he stopped moving and began to dissolve.

Rising painfully to her feet, she scanned the area for more dynamite throwers. The one who had gotten her could have only been hiding in the house ahead, to her right. It had all four of its walls, at least from what she could see, and the door was boarded up. Seras guessed he must have come out the same window he was throwing dynamite from.

She went over to the house and searched it. She found the sticks of dynamite he had been using, but had nothing to light them with. She decided that it was probably for the best, not wanting to accidentally blow up Ashley or anyone who might still happen to be normal by accident.

Peering out a crack in the wall, she spied a much larger, better maintained house than the others. By better maintained, she thought it might not fall down in less than two more years. It still looked grey and sagging, much like everything else she had seen since coming to this part of the country.

"That must be the house," she said to herself. She could see more large bear traps hidden in the grass between her and it. There was also a large padlock on the front door, but nothing she couldn't rip off.

Being careful to avoid the bear traps, she went down to the house, keeping an eye out for more villagers throwing bombs or hatchets. The padlock came off easily enough with one stiff kick to the door. Upon entering, her ears picked up a steady thumping sound, as though someone were knocking on a door.

Ducking under another wire and bomb trap placed around the corner in hopes someone would walk into it without looking, she made her way into the living room. Furniture and shelves were scattered all around; whoever had lived there, hadn't done so in a long time. The pounding noise was coming from behind a bookshelf, which Seras shunted to the side, revealing a hidden hallway.

She followed the hall into an empty study. The source of the thumping was coming from inside a cabinet. "Ashley," Seras said, opening it.

What fell out was not Ashley, but a young, handsome Spanish man who had been bound and gagged. Seras quickly ripped the tape from his mouth, eliciting a cry of pain. "Ouch, watch it lady," he said, reminding her of a South American mercenary she had met in Raccoon City on a day not unlike this one, years before. He was dressed in a white shirt covered by a leather vest with a pair of brown pants and what looked to be cowboy boots. His neck length black hair and faint stubble made him look like something of a romance cliché.

"Who are you?" she asked, helping him to his feet and untying his hands.

As he massaged his wrists, he looked Seras up and down for longer than was polite. "You're pretty attractive, you know. Even with the blood and the big knife."

She was suddenly self conscious about her appearance, and didn't know why. She was here to do a job, not win a fashion award. Sure, her actions had been brutal, but she needed to save bullets and the villagers clearly had something wrong with them. "I-I know," Seras said. "I mean…who are you and what's going on around here?"

"The name is Luis. Luis Sera. And who might you be?"

Being a vampire and a member of an organization that didn't exist, introductions had always been a problem. She decided to simply tell him the truth, or at least as much as he needed to hear. "Seras," she said. "I'm from the British government, here to rescue Ashley Graham."

"Why are the British…never mind," Luis said. "We can't stay here. Let's go. I'll tell you everything once we're away."

Nodding, she turned upon feeling a presence behind her. She was facing a trench-coated man's mid-section. She craned her neck upward to take in his full height and thought for a moment that she was having a flashback to when she had first met Jill Valentine and the giant monster that had been chasing her.

The man was bald and bearded, with one blazing red eye. Behind him were two strong looking villagers holding pitchforks. Seras sighed and rushed forward, swinging her machete with the hope of driving it into the giant's chest.

Unlike Umbrella's pet freak back in Raccoon, the man was fast and knew what he was doing. He caught Seras's machete arm by the wrist and tugged her arm out. When she went to use her other hand to free it, he grabbed it as well and held both her arms open.

She tried to pull against him, but was met with resistance far beyond what a human, even one of his size, could muster. She was about to attempt a kick, but he beat her to it, driving the toe of his boot into her stomach just bellow the ribs.

Seras didn't need to breath to live, but having the air forced out of her lungs hurt her just as much as it did a human. With a loud groan, she bent forward and went to her kneed as the man let go of her left hand. Before she could do anything else, his powerful fist came crashing down on the top of her head with skull cracking force.

There was a white flash and a shock of pain shooting down her spine, then blackness.

**To be continued… **


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four. **

A sharp pinch in her neck made her eyes flutter. She could see the hazy outline of a boot and the hem of a purple robe. She tried to move her arms, but they had been tied behind her back. There were muffled voices and she could feel the heat of a human body pressed against her back.

Seras tried to move, but her vision blurred and she found herself falling into a field of darkness and static.

When she awoke, she was sitting upright on the floor with her hands bound behind her. Her head ached and her neck was stiff, but her blood had finally kicked in and healed her.

Blinking hard, she wondered how hard she had been hit. "So you're awake," Luis said. "The Chief hit you pretty good…you okay?"

She tried to look around to see him, but they were tied back to back. She felt that she could rip the ropes apart if she needed to, but she decided that it would be best if Luis thought she was human for the moment. "I'm fine," she said. "Where are we?"

"I'm not sure," Luis said, not sounding nearly as upset as someone in his situation should. "Looks like a little warehouse or something."

A pantry was more like it, Seras thought. The room was large and lined with broken shelves, some of which still had sacks of flour sitting on them. She didn't see her weapons or equipment lying anywhere and hadn't expected to. They had even taken her hat and sunglasses.

Wiggling her wrists, she began working on loosening the ropes. "You said you would tell me what you were doing here and what was going on," Seras said.

"Oh yea," Luis said. "Well, I'm a cop, see," he said. "I used to be in Madrid, but I'm on assignment to investigate this cult."

"Los Illuminados," Seras said. "Are all of the villagers members?"

"I guess they count as laymen," Luis said. "The cult's, eh, clergy I guess is based close by."

"What's wrong with them? They attack like mad dogs and…and, I shot one in the face and…"

"It's a parasite," Luis said. "I don't know much about it, but it makes them crazy. I know how weird that sounds but it's the truth."

It was weird, but not all that weird considering some of the things she had seen. In the six years since Raccoon City, she had done a little reading on biology, and a parasite making people lose their minds actually made more sense than even her own physiology. "So the cult spreads this parasite around and controls people or something?" she said.

"As near as I've been able to figure, yeah, it's something like that."

"And they've kidnapped the American president's daughter…bloody marvelous."

Luis laughed. "I still can't believe they only sent one agent…an Englishwoman no less. I guess they want to keep this a secret then, eh?"

"I'm sure the Americans have sent in at least one person," Seras said. "I haven't seen them though. I'm also short on ideas about where Graham's daughter might be."

"Last I heard, she was being held in a church. There's a building in Pueblo with a tunnel that leads to it."

"A church, huh? I heard its bell ring…must have been some kind of rallying signal," she said.

She heard footsteps coming from outside and then a door opening. Someone was dragging something metal down the hallway outside towards them. "Someone's coming," Luis said.

The door came flying open and in walked a bloody man dragging an axe. He had come to execute them and Seras decided to snap the ropes and hope Luis would think she had untied them at the last minute.

The axe came down in between them as Seras rolled away. She got to her feet while the man was trying to pull the axe from the floor and kicked him the hip, sending him sprawling.

She pulled the axe from the wooden floor and replanted it between the man's shoulders as he tried to rise to his feet. "You're brutal, you know that?" Luis said, looking down at the man with the axe in his back.

Shrugging, she bent down to examine the man she had killed. Stuck in his belt was her gun and knife, in his pockets her radio and box of ammunition. She had feared she would be using farming tools to defend herself from here on out.

Looking at his body, she wondered about the parasite that was supposedly infesting him and making him behave like a lunatic. Was it microscopic and dwelling in his blood, or was there a leech-like creature nestled somewhere in his brain? Part of her wanted to cut him open and find out, but she rubbed her neck and made a sour face at the thought.

What had been done to her neck, she wondered. Maybe they had injected her with a sedative. That would have explained why regaining consciousness had taken her so long. Her blood could fight off most substances, but perhaps the injury to her head had weakened it somewhat.

Frustrated that she had been a vampire for over half a decade and was still in the dark about what her body could and could not do, she stood and was about to ask Luis about the nature of the parasite when she noticed that he was gone. "Luis?" she said, thinking he had gone out into the hall.

He hadn't, and it didn't look as though he had been snatched away by some foul creature while she wasn't paying attention. At the end of the hall, leaning against a small table in the corner was the machete she had been wielding earlier.

Too many people and things were slipping past her for comfort. She would have bought Luis's story about being a cop before, but his leaving like he did now made her suspicious.

She left the little structure and saw that it was indeed some sort of warehouse tucked next to a ledge with a stonewall protecting its front. There was a V-shaped gap in the wall to the right of the steel swinging door set in the rock wall. Seras walked up to it and peered through, seeing the latest obstacle she would have to pass through.

On the other side of the wall was a gorge with wooden bridges connecting the buildings set into the sides of the cliff wall. She could see another door set into the cliff at the other end of the odd gorge fortress. There were also about a dozen villagers patrolling the bridges as well as manning the rooftops of the tin sheds that likely housed supplies.

There was no way she would be able to sneak past them and they were guarding the only way open to her. Whether she liked it or not, she was in for a fight.

Honestly sorry that she couldn't yet turn into a bat and fly, she opened the steel door and walked out onto the ledge overlooking a sheer drop into the gorge. A tired looking teenager wearing a grey, cloth cap pointed at her and screamed something in Spanish. Shouts came from across the gorge as villagers came running, carrying an assortment of pitchforks, axes, sickles and now torches.

She was in a good position to fight them. A wooden bridge led down off the side of the cliff and up to the narrow place she was occupying. There was plenty of room to maneuver without bumping the wall or falling off the cliff, but not enough for her to be easily surrounded.

The young man charged, looking to tackle her. Throwing the machete into the ground, she let him run into her. Grabbing his shoulders, she heaved him off the cliff to her left.

He screamed in anger as he fell, and Seras forced from her mind the old guilt of killing people who had been turned mad by a virus, vampire blood, or a parasite. She grabbed her machete and ran forward, wanting to give herself room to retreat.

The thought of where Luis had gone came to her mind as six villagers thundered down the ramp and turned up the small hill towards her. Unless there was some secret passage he had taken, there was no way he could have snuck past the villagers any better than she could have.

She split the skull of a black haired villager as he ran up the hill. His sickle fell from his had as he dropped to his knees. A hard kick send him flying off her machete and into the two men running up behind him.

A small crowd had piled up bellow her. It seemed that the villagers had developed some caution in dealing with her, instead of throwing themselves mindlessly at her.

Two men, one grey haired and filthy held up their pitchforks at her and held their ground. Behind them, two men with hatchets were testing the weight of the weapons, getting ready to throw them.

Tensing up and feeling like a tennis player, she prepared to dodge or swat any incoming projectiles. A hatchet came flying at her and she ducked it. The second, she swatted off the cliff with her machete.

The two men with pitchforks came up the hill slowly, making her back up. Behind them, another man with a pitchfork wedged his way past the hatchet throwers to backup the front.

Unsure of how she was going to get the pitchfork men out of her way without being stabbed, she had no choice but to retreat slowly. Thinking the battle might force her back to the door in the wall, or even to the house, she began to hope one of them would become impatient and charge her, leaving her an opening.

Some of them began chuckling and muttering things in Spanish. When she heard a match be struck, she was outraged that they thought this would be a good time for a cigarette.

The sizzle of a fuse made her pride feel a little better, but did little for her sense of well-being. Running backward quickly, her eyes tracked the stick of dynamite at it was hurled up and over the heads of the villagers.

She let it land with a thump, bouncing once. Shuffling forward, she kicked it between the legs of the pitchfork wielding villagers. The entire crowd shouted expletives, as the villagers in the back attempted to retreat while those closest to Seras ran forward.

Minding the points of the pitchforks, she turned one to the side and pushed its owner backward, ducking a little so he would be between her and the blast.

When it came, there was a shower of dirt and bodily fluid coupled with the concussive force that sent her and the villager who's pitchfork she had parried, flying backward.

She landed hard on her back with the man on top of her. Shoving him off and rising to her feet, she kicked him the side, sending him over the cliff. As the other man with the pitchfork attempted to rise to his feet, she brought the weapon down on the back of his head, slaying him.

The group of villagers had either been blown to pieces or knocked off the cliff by the dynamite stick. Looking towards the door on the other end of the gorge, she noticed that the villagers that had been in the towers had come down and joined the doomed mob. There might be a straggler or two, but it looked as though she had cleared the way without much of a struggle.

What was left of the villager's bodies began to bubble and dissolve into a heap of dark sludge, leaving nothing but their clothes behind. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her radio. Dialing up Integra, she headed past the piles of clothes towards the makeshift bridge that lead to the other end of the gorge, up a hill and to the door set into the stone cliff.

"This is Seras, come in HQ," she said.

"Roger that," came Integra's voice. "Report."

"I met someone claiming to be an undercover policeman. He says he has information on the cult."

"Did he say his name? we'll run a check."

"He said his name was Luis Sera. I was captured briefly along with him by Chief Mendez…Sera said the cult controls its members by a parasite or something."

"A parasite?"

Seras explained what little Luis had told her about the cult and where he thought Ashley might be.

"Well, your main priority is to rescue Graham. We'll worry about exterminating these parasites later. Radio us again if you learn more or find the girl. Integra out."

Seras put the radio back in her pocket when she reached the door. She hoped she could avoid more battles with villagers and rescue Ashley Graham without further trouble.

**To be continued…**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five.**

Beyond the gorge was more dead forest. The only comfort Seras found was in that there were fewer crows flying through the bare, grey branches squawking about their supper.

She nearly didn't see a rusty bear trap set in the middle of the path. Using a branch, she sprung it, snapped the end off and used what was left to poke around in the berm as she went. She uncovered two more traps as she made her way up a hill towards a house.

At one time the building might have been quite stylish and inhabited by rich people who wanted to get away from the city now and again. What paint was left on it was grey and peeling, the second floor windows were coated in dust, and there was no door, just a frame.

From the look of it, she was approaching the house from behind, not the front. Its position on the hill made it look much taller than it really was and she was careful to look for more traps before stepping over the threshold.

Walking down the hall, the walls showed signs of neglect, but not complete abandonment. The walls were adorned with faded paintings while the corner of the hall nestled a table with a moldy doily and a dusty flower vase complete with dead flowers.

At the end of the hall was a set of stairs, which Seras tried hard to make not creak as she walked up them, her machete ready to lop the legs off anyone who came to attack her. On the second floor was a lavishly furnished bedroom. Like everything else in the house it needed cleaning, but otherwise it looked ready to take a nap in.

Sitting on a reading desk was a key in the shape of the bizarre symbol she had been seeing all around the village. They key was sitting on a piece of paper, which Seras picked up just as she heard muffled voices from beyond the door across the room.

The note was short. It was a memo from Chief Mendez, presumably to the villagers, telling them to let Luis live. According to the document, Luis had stolen something from the cult and they feared third party involvement. While the memo didn't mention Seras, she didn't think the third party was her.

Tucking the key and note into her pocket, she turned her attention to the muffled conversation going on in the other room.

"You injected her with the parasite?" someone said in German-accented English.

"Yes," came a deep, rasping voice. "She will be ours soon enough."

"I think you've wasted a perfectly good Plagas injection. Her blood will most likely fight it off."

Seras's eyebrow arched as she edged closer to the door. She supposed there was nothing wrong with German people being in Spain, but still, something strange was going on.

"Ah, but you forget; Las Plagas assimilated perfectly with the test subjects you sent over. Vampirism is no deterrent," said the deeper voice.

"I have forgotten nothing, you simply do not understand," replied the German voice, which Seras now thought belonged to a woman. "The vampires you experimented on were created via the FREAK chip, they were artificial vampires. She is the real thing."

Seras detected a hint of jealously in the voice, just as she realized who was speaking and that she had been injected with a parasite. A pit developed in her stomach and she felt her limbs become heavy. The voices continued, but she was no longer aware of what they were saying.

Millennium, a group formed during World War Two with the idea of creating an all vampire military unit, had been causing Hellsing problems in recent years. Their goal seemed to be nothing more than to propagate wars all over the world; to what purpose, Hellsing had not yet been able to uncover.

"Just make sure your men don't leave things lying around," the German woman said. "She's not someone to be trifled with, and to be honest, these villagers are less than professional."

She waited as their footsteps moved down the hall and down what sounded like another set of stairs. It was obvious that the man had been Chief Mendez, but she wished she knew which member of Millennium he had been talking to. She only knew a little about the group's members and their powers, but she did know that they were not people she wanted to encounter anytime soon.

She pulled out her radio and retreated to the stairwell, for fear she might be overheard. "Come in HQ," she said, turning the volume down on the radio.

"Roger, Seras, this is HQ," Integra said through slight static.

"Bad news. I just heard Chief Mendez speaking with someone from Millennium…a woman I think."

"Millennium? Are you serious?" Integra said.

"Yes. What's worse, I think I've been injected with the parasite. The Millennium member didn't seem to think it would work though."

"I doubt it will…still, if you experience anything odd, report immediately. Your objective is the same, but depending on what you find out, Ashley Graham might lose priority."

"Roger that," Seras said. "I'll report again soon."

"HQ out," Integra said.

She pocketed her radio and vowed to get Ashley Graham out alive. She didn't care what Los Illuminados and Millennium were up to, she'd take care of it later, perhaps with proper backup for once. Pulling Ashley's picture from her coat pocket, she fancied she could see Sherry Birkins face superimposed over the face of Ashley Graham.

There was no time to waste over the past. She put the picture back in her pocket and quietly made her way through the door into the hall she had eavesdropped on. The hall led down several paces to an open door, which led down another flight of stairs. She could hear nothing going on, so she kept going forward.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she was blindsided by something with a tremendous bulk. It slammed her into the wall, causing the woodwork to shake. Hurt, but not stunned, she swung her machete at whatever had hit her. It darted backward, missing her blade by inches.

It was Mendez. He had been hiding in a small alcove by the stairs. How someone his size had been able to sneak up on her and dodge her attack mystified Seras. Perhaps the parasite that must be in him allowed him access to inhuman feats similar to that of a vampire.

Drawing himself up to his full height, he grabbed the railing on the stairs and snapped of a section like it was a twig. "I wonder, vampire, if I pin you to the wall, will you whither and die?"

He wasn't moving to strike. He seemed to want her to respond. "Who said I was a vampire?" she said, stalling to plan her move.

"We know what you are. I also know you were listening to us just now. Hellsing was stupid to come here, and to only send one agent. I don't care how powerful they say you are, you are nothing compared to Las Plagas."

He would likely try to stab her with the wooden beam instead of club her. When he did, she would try to sidestep the thrust and lop of one or both of his hands. While he recoiled in pain, she would then take his head. She only hoped the machete hadn't dulled too much.

Mendez squinted at her, making her notice that one of his eyes was red and false. "I wonder…" he said. "I wonder if your blood was able to fight it like she said."

"Who? Who was it you were talking to?"

"No matter, die." He made to impale her, just as she predicted. Stepping to her right, towards the stairs, she dodged the attack, but barely. Mendez was indeed fast. She struck his wrist with the machete, severing his hand.

If he felt it, he made no sign. The broken piece of wood fell to the ground along with Mendez's hand, and he promptly struck her with the stump of his injured arm.

The blow sent Seras flying into the stairs; her machete went clattering out of her grip as she lost feeling in her arm. Twisting onto her back, she shuffled painfully up the stairs as Mendez picked up the now shorter wood, with his good hand and came lumbering slowly toward her.

"That stung a little," he said, holding up the bloody stump. With a squelching sound, a sharp, hook-like appendage protruded from the wound. "But as you can see, only a minor annoyance."

"Try this," she said, quickly drawing her nine millimeter and firing into Mendez's face. The first shot took a large chunk out of his cheek, the second hit the bone surrounding his large, red eye.

The blood that spraying out was watery and turf colored. He shouted angrily and stepped backward, shielding his face with his forearm. "My eye," he muttered in Spanish. Seras took aim as Mendez ran his hand over his eye, grasped it between his two fingers, and pulled it out, revealing it to be a prosthetic.

Holding it up and examining it, he seemed to be more concerned with it than the battle at hand. "Hey!" she shouted, firing at his face. The bullet struck him in the neck, bringing his attention back down to her.

With a snarl, he tucked his red eye into his coat pocket and ran towards her with the hook-like tentacle protruding from his arm flailing. Instead of backing up, Seras let herself slid down the stairs under Mendez as he came at her. Planting her feet low on his torso, she kicked him backward with all the strength she could muster.

Mendez struck the wall in the dining room, causing a painting of a lake to fall off as he vibrated the entire house. Not wanting to waste her advantage, Seras stood and walked towards him, emptying her gun into his head and chest.

Screaming, now possibly in pain, Mendez fought to his feet through the hail of bullets. As he stood, Seras heard ripping flesh sounds coming from him. With his arms in the air, he stood to his full height and kept growing taller.

Firing up at his ruined face, she backed up quickly when the gun finally clicked empty. Mendez stooped and walked forward while two blade-like appendages tore his coat open, revealing a centipede-like midsection.

Shoving her gun in her pants, she scrambled backward looking for her machete. It had fallen a few steps up from the foot of the stairs, luckily at an angle that she could easily grab it at as she ran up the steps.

Making gargling noises from his dripping face, the creature that was Chief Mendez came forward into the stairwell, drawing himself up to his full height. His coat slid off, revealing all of his towering, segmented midsection.

He swung at her from the right with two elongated sharp legs. They hit the stair railing, splintering it, making Seras duck to avoid being hit. Facing Mendez, she took two steps down the stairs and dove past him, striking his thin body with her machete as she went.

The blade caught him between two segments and severed him in two. She C-rolled to her feet and turned to watch Mendez's legs stagger around, spouting a blood-like substance from its spinal column.

She let out a deep breath and let herself relax. Her only concern now was someone from Millennium doubling back and finishing the job while she was tired. Her mind returned to Mendez when four more insect-leg appendages sprouted from his upper body as it began crawling up the stairs.

Holding the machete in the crook of her elbow, she grabbed her gun and replaced the spent clip with a fresh one. What was left of Mendez had begun to crawl up the wall and onto the ceiling.

Instead of pumping bullets into the body, she aimed for the legs that were digging into the wood of the ceiling. Aiming like there was a third eye in her forehead, her bullets struck the legs at key points, causing the monster to fall into the dining room table, making it to buckle.

Dropping her gun, she ran over and began hacking with her machete at the thing's head. The claw-tipped legs flailed, one grazing the top of her head before she chopped it off.

She kept chopping as hard as she could, spattering herself in Mendez's blood and causing her arm to become tired. A familiar haze dropped over her senses like a red curtain, blinding her, making her fall and seem to drown.

Drawing herself up, back to her senses, she let the machete drop into the table next to the bloody, inhuman mass. Reeling backward against the wall, she braced herself against it and sat down.

Breathing heavily, she felt the first hint in her stomach that she was getting hungry. Feeling the cut on her head, she was thankful she hadn't been hurt worse. She didn't think the blood from the parasite-infested villagers would be too drinkable. Perhaps it would do if she were desperate, but she wouldn't risk it if she didn't have to.

Rising to her feet, she thought about finding a spot to rest for a bit while she reported Mendez's death to Integra. It was likely whoever was left would step up their efforts to kill her now that knew she wasn't someone they could ignore.

There was a pantry in a side room beyond the dining room. She collected her weapons and wiped herself off as best she could with a napkin from the other end of the dinner table. Shutting the door to the pantry, she sat down and kept her conversation quiet.

**To be continued…**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six.**

Before leaving the house she had fought Mendez in, she went through the pockets of his coat. Something about how he had acted had begun to bother her while she was updating Integra in the pantry by radio.

"Where is it," she said to herself, rummaging through the thick coat's deep pockets. "He stopped attacking when he thought I'd damaged it."

She found the false eye along with some money and a few scrawled notes. Nothing important was written on them, but she pocketed them anyway. Wiping the eye clean, she examined it carefully. It was made of glass, and although she hadn't seen many glass eyes before, she thought there was an overabundance of detail in the red iris.

She put it in the same pocket she kept the key she had found upstairs. She wasn't sure why, but she thought it might be useful, what with the concern Mendez showed over it being damaged. What a monster like him needed with a cosmetic eye, she couldn't guess and thought it was a little suspicious.

Seras exited through the front of the house back towards what she thought might be Pueblo. Being knocked unconscious earlier had thrown off her directions sense, so she couldn't be sure.

A dirt road wound down the hill back into the woods. Barrels and carts had been set along the sides and the road seemed well traveled. After about a quarter of a kilometer, Seras rounded a corner and saw the wooden gate to the town.

Five men, a woman, and large man with a grain sack on his head, like the one she had met before and thrown in the well, were gathered in front of the gate. "There she is!" a woman shouted in Spanish, pointing up at Seras with a large butcher knife. "Kill her!"

The man with the sack over his head began tugging on the chainsaw cord, making it growl. Throwing the tip of her machete into the ground, Seras drew her pistol and took aim at the man with chainsaw.

Once it was started and the blade was moving, the man held it above his head and walked up the hill with the six others ducking behind him. Knowing nothing of chainsaws, it took Seras a few moments to spot what she thought was the gas tank. Aiming, she fired a bullet into the saw. It sputtered and caught flame, yet the man kept running forward as though nothing was wrong.

Lowering the gun, she put a bullet in his knee, causing him to fall and drop the saw, which then exploded. The blade flew off, hitting the woman in face, making her stagger backward and drop her knife. The others kept coming right on past the sack mask man as he slowly got to his feet favoring his wounded knee.

The men were all carrying hatchets. One threw his at Seras, but it flew past her harmlessly without her having to duck. She shot three of them in the knees, causing them to tumble and leaving only the woman and a young man to come at her.

Shifting her gun to her left hand, Seras grabbed the machete at sliced the arm of the woman off at the elbow as she made to stab downward. She narrowly stepped away from the younger man's hatchet as he struck. She shot him the face, exploding his skull, then elbowed the woman's torn face, hard.

She shot the woman in the face and turned to swing the machete at the head of the masked man. It buried into his skull and he fell forward into Seras with his arms outstretched. She nearly stumbled, but sent him backward with a push.

Her machete was still in his head as the three men she had shot had regained their footing and were hobbling towards her. Three bullets into their foreheads put them down. Quickly she refreshed the clip with the box of bullets in her pocket and pulled the machete from the masked man's head. Waiting to see if anyone else was going to come through the gate bellow, she counted how many bullets she had left.

Not counting the fresh clip in the gun, she had two clips worth of fifteen left. With the way things were going, she would be out of bullets before she made it to the church. She put the gun back in her pocket and picked up three axes. Using a bit of thin rope from a nearby cart, she looped it through the belt holes on her jeans and hung the hatchets there.

She had no idea how to throw hatchets with any sort of accuracy, but anything that might help her save bullets was something she had to try. Unbarring the gate, she opened the door slowly and crept into the village. A short path bordered by houses and a fence lead down a hill and into the town square.

The village seemed to be abandoned, something she was thankful for. It seemed like every time she turned around there was a vicious fight waiting for her. Looking around, one building caught her eye. Across the road from a tall tower was a low building with a A-frame roof. The door looked incredibly solid and a steel religious insignia, much like the one on the key she had, was bolted to the door.

Sure enough, there was a keyhole that accepted the key she had taken back in the house with Mendez. With her machete poised to strike, she entered the empty room. While cluttered with turned over barrels and skewed shelves, the room looked as though it had seen a lot of use. Seras was no architect, but she half-suspected the building was once a kind of church; maybe it had even connected to the tall tower across the road.

Through a door on the other side of the main room was a tiny, lamp-lit room with walls of dirt. The building apparently was part of the tiny hill behind it. In the floor, to Seras's right, was a hole with a ladder. She jumped down the hole to find a long, winding tunnel that lead into a low, open, spot cave filled with ankle high water.

Candles were set in human-sized cells in the walls. Judging by the odd assortments of bones, Seras could tell this was once a tomb. Annoyed that her feet were wet from the pool, she continued on.

At the end of the long tunnel was a ladder that led up and out of a well. Seras crouched as she cleared the stone lip, seeing the steeple of a church towering above the branches of leafless trees. It was getting darker, but that didn't bother her. If anything, she would have the advantage when it became night.

The church was resting on a hill, with an old graveyard set between it and Seras. The fence around the tombstones was more for show than anything; crows were perched in the trees and on the graves.

She could see villagers standing in front of the church. They hadn't seen her, and so she crawled on her stomach past the graveyard around to the path that led up the hill to the church.

Her ears picked up dozens of crashing sounds coming from behind her. Getting to her knees, she turned to see a mob of villagers moving through the grey trees behind her. A fence by the well and a shack had kept her from seeing them before, and she cursed her carelessness.

Moving back to the well as the shouts grew louder, she saw a pair of hands grasp the edge and begin to pull up the body of a bald man with a grey beard.

"Damn," she said, running into the graveyard. She had been surrounded. Running up the hill past the graves, she saw that there were less villagers at the top of the hill than behind her. Even so, stopping to fight would give the mob behind her, numbering in the dozens, time to catch up.

Jumping the graveyard fence, nearly catching her butt on one of the barbs, the half-dozen or so villagers near the church began coming down the hill to meet her. There was a pathway leading off to the left, past the church and Seras took it, knowing that getting Ashley out of the church with so many villagers on her tail wouldn't end well.

The pathway ran next to a cliff overlooking a lake. Seras stopped and looked back, seeing that the villagers were indeed chasing her, all of them armed with farm implements and shouting.

The dirt trail became a wooden bridge attached to the cliff-side. It wrapped around the rock and ended on a ledge about three hundred meters over the lakeshore bellow.

She ran until she came to a large gap in the bridge. She was able to leap it with no problem, but she didn't go any farther. There was a structure built on the walkway ahead, and taking a quick glance to make sure no one was in it, she turned to face her army of pursuers.

The gap was about two and a half meters across; a difficult, but not impossible jump for a normal person. Seras intended to make it impossible though, and take out as many villagers as she could.

When the first one came around the small bend, he tried to stop upon seeing that she had stopped running. The momentum of the crown behind him sent him, along with a woman and an old man behind him, tumbling off the edge down to the hard beach bellow.

She heard the screams and shouts of a few more from the back who had been pushed off the side. "What's wrong?" she shouted. "Care to try a jump?"

Swatting an axe away with her machete as it came hurling at her, she hoped one would be dumb enough to throw a stick of dynamite. A blast on the bridge would send the entire crowd tumbling out of her misery. She'd have to find another way back to the church, but with close to fifty less villagers to worry about, it might be worth it.

After some muttering and a few more casualties, everyone in the mob seemed to have gotten the memo describing the situation. A middle-aged man carrying a shovel was pointing and shouting at her, while a few men turned back and began conversing with others behind them.

They weren't the only ones who could plot and plan, Seras thought, looking at the thick beam above her head that seemed to be the main support for the entire structure. Under the garbled Spanish, she could hear the wood from the part of the bridge the villagers stood creak and groan beneath their weight.

Taking a hatchet out of her rope belt, she eyed the support beam that tied the platform her enemies were on to the main beam. She threw the hatchet and watched as the handle clattered off the woof and dropped down to the lake.

The villagers began shouting more. The man who had been raving at her the entire time bent his legs and jumped. He would have made it, had he not met with Seras's boot before his feet touched the wood.

Before another one had the same idea, she threw another hatchet, this time cutting the rope binding the support beam to the main. The entire section that held the villagers dropped and slanted, sending dozens of them plummeting like raisins from a scoop.

She wanted to smile, but kept her face straight. Infested or not, she had killed nearly thirty people and refused to feel good about it. The dozen or so that had clung to the platform were doing all they could to hang on, so she didn't need to worry about any of them making the jump to her side.

"Sorry," she said, turning and heading on down to the other side of the cliff where a steel door had been set up. The cult's bizarre insignia had been painted on the door, and she hoped she would be able to find a way back to the church that didn't involve climbing back over the ruined bridge.

Opening the door, she considered that this might be a lucky break for her. Having gone past the church, they might figure that she didn't know Ashley was being kept there, and thus, not post as many guards as they normally would. Either way, she needed to keep away from the church for a bit and wait for things to calm down. She only hoped the girl wouldn't be moves again before she came back.

The door led through a small tunnel in the rock and out into a scene reminiscent of King Kong. Trees had been felled, set into the ground and sharpened at one end to create a kind of arena. To one side, small shacks had been built.

She was about to inspect them closer when a fit of coughing hit her. Hacking and wheezing, she looked at her hand to see small flecks of blood. "What in blazes?" she said, looking at her hand and wiping it off on her jeans. Being a vampire with the ability to regenerate lost limbs, she rarely had cause to cough these days. Sometime when she inhaled massive amounts of dust or gas, she coughed, but she never got sick or ate anything to choke on.

"The parasite," she said. "It's taken hold…but how?"

She pulled out her radio and called Integra. "HQ, this is Seras, come in HQ."

"What is it, Seras?" Integra's voice said over the radio. "Have you found the church?"

Seras gave a quick rundown of her tactical situation. "But…I think something's wrong. I just coughed up a mess of blood. I never cough, and the parasite…"

"Relax, Seras," Integra said. "Is it possible you were injured internally by your fight with the police chief?"

"Well, yes, but…I would have healed that by now, no problem."

There was silence for a moment. "Perhaps it is the parasite taking hold, but that's highly unlikely given your condition. If it worsens, we'll do something about it. Find a way to the girl and get her secure. Integra out."

Seras angrily put the radio back in her pocket. Next time, she would make sure to ask Alucard what he thought. Her former master, and the one who had made her a vampire in the first place, was the one to ask about parasites and vampires. Perhaps she would even be forced to request him as backup, if things got any worse. Integra had been depending on him less and less in the past two years, for reasons Seras had theories about, but nothing concrete.

Sighing, she made a quick search of the shacks, holding her chest and worrying.

**To be continued…**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven.**

The shacks in the arena contained farming tools and various other supplies. Seras was at a loss to name the purpose of the strange setup, and instead of puzzling over it she went through a wooden door on the other side, hoping it would lead to a path that swung back around to the church.

Through the door was yet another long, winding dirt road bordered by trees. Still keeping an eye out for traps, she noticed the ground becoming wetter. "I must be close to the lake," she said.

So close, there seemed to be a smaller lake blocking the path in front of her. A boardwalk had been constructed, networking a series pavilions and dilapidated shacks, over the waist deep water.

There was a tripwire set knee high across the boardwalk right as Seras walked up onto it. She stepped over it and saw that the water bellow had similar traps running from dead trees to the beams holding up the walk.

Thankful there were no hostile villagers around to make walking over a booby-trapped boardwalk even more fun that it was, she reached the other side with no problem.

The path went back onto dry land and into a small valley. Keeping an eye out for more boulder drops from above, she jogged down the hill, through the valley and out into a beach.

She had the option of heading up the hill, but decided to investigate the lakeside first. Next to a long, modern looking made out of steel, was a short wooden peer with a boat. Looking into the boat, she saw that it was powered by a motor and loaded with about a dozen barbed harpoons.

Moving over to the boat, she picked up a harpoon and thought about taking a few of them with her. She dropped it back in the boat when she decided they would be too noisy if she tried to carry them around. "What do they need these for, anyway?" she said, looking out over the lake. Giant, uprooted tree stumps were floating in the lake, making Seras think the lake might possibly be manmade and recent.

Looking to the lake's south side, she saw another building, much like the one to her right. Thinking she might take the boat across, she decided to inspect the building on her side first.

It was filled with modified farming tools, digging equipment, and food. There were dozens of soiled beds, along with a row of lockers. Clearing her throat, she searched the building, hoping to find something useful.

She did. In the bottom of one of the lockers under a dirty vest and a hat, was a wooden box containing three sticks of dynamite tied together. There was also a silver, scratched, Zippo lighter. She put the dynamite into her pocket and lit the lighter. Smelling the burnt lighter fluid and enjoying the sight of the flame, she half hoped she would have a chance to use the dynamite in the future.

Thinking that was a terrible thing to think, she left the building and decided to go to the lake's south side. She could have walked around the edge, but the cliff would have meant she would be in water most of the time. She didn't know how deep it was near the cliff and either way, it would take too much time.

The motor on the boat started after a few pulls of the cord and she was off. As she moved across the water, she began to feel a sick, dragging sensation in her stomach. Pulling the motor up out of the water and letting the boat slow to a stop, she held her stomach and wondered if the parasite wasn't about to rip out of her chest like in that movie about those aliens she had seen.

After a moment, she realized it wasn't so much a physical sensation as a spiritual one. Looking into the dirty water it dawned on her what the problem was; vampires weren't supposed to be able to cross running water. Yet this wasn't running water, it was a lake, and she would still be able to cross, it just wouldn't feel good.

Feeling ill as she stared at the bottom of the boat, she figured she would just cross and get it over with. Questions could come later. Right now it was enough to know that crossing a lake on a boat made her feel ill.

Something bumped the boat when Seras put the motor back in the water. Thinking she had merely hit a tree stump, she kept going, praying she didn't somehow fall into the water. If she felt ill now, getting dunked might be a serious problem.

She hit something, hard, sending the bow of the boat into the air and knocking a few of the harpoons, including one with a rope tied to the end, into the water.

"What in the bloody hell?" she said, pulling the motor up again as she leveled off and looking behind her.

At first she thought she had struck a sandbar or a ledge that was partially submerged. She gasped with fright as the long, dark object began to move. She caught sight of a large tail waving sideways along with a pair of webbed feet.

Before she could speed away, the boat pulled hard to the left, making her stomach lurch. It was then she saw that the harpoon with the rope tied to it had hooked onto the lake monster.

She was now being towed into the center of the lake, making her body ache and her head grind. She knew that if she did fall in, she would likely never come up again. Her body, and possibly even her soul, would be washed away into nothingness.

Her hand went to her machete with the idea of cutting the rope. The beast had surfaced and was swimming hard towards a floating stump. The size of two double decked tour busses, Seras was sure it could bite the boat to splinters if it got another chance.

It swam beneath a giant stump, forcing Seras to slash the rope. The boat bumped hard into the stump, but didn't break. Using the short piece still tied to the bow, she wrapped it around a root, hoping to keep the boat and the stump together.

A colossal splash, sending water up and over the stump onto Seras made her shriek. The water didn't burn, but it did feel as though each drop was made of lead. Getting wet normally didn't bother her, but she had no time to contemplate the mystery of what was happening to her over open water.

Taking a harpoon, she crawled up onto the stump, slipping a little as the muddy soil gave way. Perched atop something made of dirt and wood, she felt a little bit better. She could also see the creature's outline as it moved around the stump just bellow the surface. It was shaped like a giant salamander, making her mind go back six years to the giant alligator she had fought in Raccoon City's sewers.

Her hand fell on the dynamite in her pocket and small grin went across her face. The situation was a little different, but the principle the same; put something explosive in the giant monster's mouth and set it off.

She pulled out the Zippo and the dynamite and held them up, looking for a chance. The creature had retreated a short distance and surfaced, much like a crocodile watching for prey. Seras couldn't see its beady black amphibian eyes, but she knew they were seeing her. When the thing opened its giant mouth and began swimming towards her, she lit the lighter.

She also made a disgusted face when she saw into the thing's mouth. It was stuffed with flailing, pale, tentacles; hallmarks of the Plaga parasite. Seras lit the fuse and threw the dynamite sticks into the salamander's mouth. It landed on a clump of tentacles which greedily enveloped the bomb and drew it down the monster's throat.

The creature submerged before it hit the log, making Seras wait an agonizing few moments for the sound of results. She felt a slight vibration through her rear in the stump, and saw the surface of the water ripple.

The water, already dark from silt, grew darker as the stench of amphibian blood filled her nose. She could see the creature's dead tail floating off to her left as the dead creature was held down by the giant stump and root system.

She sent the harpoon lazily into the creature's tail, and returned to the boat. Immediately, the feeling of sickness and sinking returned, making her climb back to the stump for relief.

Thinking back to her conversations with Alucard, before she drank Annette Birkin's blood and became a full vampire, she remembered him saying something about most vampires needing to sleep in coffins filled with dirt to cross water or regain their energy.

Having been turned by Alucard, she was strong enough of a vampire to not have to sleep in a dirty wooden box all of the time, but it was clear the water was giving her a hard time. As she pondered using the boat to somehow tow the stump, a flash of inspiration hit her.

Using a harpoon, she scraped as much dirt and she could into the boat. When she had a good amount, perhaps a bucket or two worth, she broke off a few roots for good measure and stepped into the dirty boat.

The horrible feeling was still there, but it had been reduced significantly. Pleased with her ingenuity, she restarted the motor, which had stalled out, and headed for the Southwest end of the lake.

Pulling up to the pier, she got off the boat and washed herself off in the shallows, wondering why she was able to do that much, but not boat across the lake without feeling like she was being compressed and destroyed.

As she got clean and began to think about calling Integra to ask Alucard about the rules regarding water, as she was now thoroughly confused about them, she began coughing.

Looking at the red specks on her hand and spitting bloody phlegm, she reached for her radio, only to double over in pain. She tried to stand, but the pain was too great. Crawling, she headed towards the building, hoping to find a place to hide and ride out whatever was happening to her.

Instead, she became dizzy and her vision blurred. It also began to narrow. Darkness closing in from the outside finally enveloped her and she collapsed.

**To be continued…**


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight.**

She woke up to the sound of thunder. Sitting up, there was a sensation in her chest. Not pain exactly, but she rubbed between her breasts and looked around. It was nighttime, and without the horrid sun beaming down, even through the clouds, she felt much better.

"Glad you finally woke up," came a smooth, deep, male voice from behind her.

She spun, drawing her gun and pointing it at a handsome man sitting on a desk behind her. His hair was cut a little like a bowl was put over his head, but it had grown out some. "Who are you?" she asked, not fooled by his casual demeanor.

Holding his hands up, he smiled. "Relax, my name's Leon. Leon Scott Kennedy."

"Where am I? What happened?"

"I found you out cold by the beach. I dragged you into the building nearby. You haven't gone far."

"H-how long have I been unconscious?" she asked, looking at the dark sky through the rain spattered window.

"I'd say about six hours," Leon said, checking his wristwatch. "Your boss radioed you, so I took the call. I hope that was okay."

She didn't answer, as whether it was okay or not depended on a great deal of things. "Stop playing games," she said sternly. "I'm in no mood."

"You're right, we don't have time," Leon said, looking at her up and down, only more discretely than Luis Sera had done. "I'm the American agent. You and I have the same mission. I also know you're some kind of vampire and you're from Hellsing."

Her jaw dropped. "W-what? How do you know all of that?"

Leon shrugged. "I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you." His face had gone blank and serious. "Actually, I'm just as secret an agent as you are, and I guess the way our bosses see it, we're so secret that it doesn't really matter if we know each other…stupid, I know."

She nodded, thinking it was very stupid indeed. She was no mind reader, but nothing about his demeanor suggested he was a liar. He seemed a little nervous, but after all, she was a vampire and had a gun pointed at him. Lowering her weapon, she looked around for her machete and found it leaning against the door.

"Ashley Graham is being held in the church. I need to find a way to get there, but I took out part of the bridge on my way over."

"I saw," Leon said. "Up ahead, there's a waterfall. I found a memo that said the key to the church was hidden in a tunnel under the falls. The tunnel also loops back around to that weird gladiator-looking place. I think there's a way back to the church from there that doesn't use the bridge."

Seras's shoulders slumped. "A waterfall? Oh…uh…"

"Running water, right? You're boss, Integra, said you might have some trouble with that. There's a sluice gate that controls the flow. If you cover me, I can shut it off for you."

"I wish she'd tell me these things," Seras said. "We should go."

"Yeah," Leon said, moving over to a shadowy corner and picking up a scoped rifle. "Look what I found."

He handed it to Seras; her love of guns took over and she examined it, unable to hold back a slight smile. It was a bolt-action .308 Savage, the wood stock was a little scratched but the barrel was black and smooth. "Where…"

"Lying around, pretty much. There aren't many guns out in these parts, lucky us, so they keep them for special occasions I guess."

"I can cover you with this," she said, admiring the weapon. "Oh, and it's even got a shoulder strap."

"Glad to meet a woman who appreciates the finer things in life," Leon said. "Say, I, uh, wanted to ask you something."

Her eyebrow raised. He was about to ask if she was single, she just knew it. "What?"

"Raccoon City…you were there, right?"

She sighed, half relieved he wasn't hitting on her and half annoyed he'd brought that sore subject up. "Yes, I was there. It was awful and I'd rather not talk about it."

"That's just it," Leon said. "I was there too."

She nearly dropped the gun while she slung it over her back. "W-what? How could you…?"

Shaking his head, Leon waved her off. "Sorry, I know. There's no way you should believe that…too much of a coincidence."

He was right. She guessed there might have been a few survivors of Raccoon, but she had never heard of any aside from those she herself had escaped with. Still, unless it was to get her to trust him, there was no reason to lie about it. "It wouldn't be the strangest thing I'd ever seen," she said. "How did you get out?"

"A train in Umbrella's lab. I escaped with a woman by the name of Claire. We nearly got blown up on the way out."

Her mind flashed back to moment six years prior when she rounded the corner deep within the Umbrella labs and found the tunnel to the train caved in. Had she been faster, Sherry and her might have ridden out with Leon and this Claire person.

Nodding slowly, her teeth grinding, she smiled. "I must've just missed you…I left in an Umbrella helicopter, as you probably well know."

"Yeah, it's too bad we didn't meet up in the station or the sewers. We saw a lot of your handiwork though…could've used you."

"I promise, Leon, we'll talk about Raccoon later."

Leon nodded. "Yeah, no time for the good 'ol days just yet. Let's go."

They walked out of the building together with Leon taking the lead. He fished a small flashlight out of his pocket and clipped it to his brown leather coat. As thunder rolled over the lake and the wind blew hard, Seras was glad the rain was at least light. Unsure of how much the flashlight was helping Leon, her own eyes had no trouble seeing in the dark.

He led her through a cleft in the rocks and she could hear the roar of water as they drew close to the lake's source. The familiar and unwelcome sight of two villagers standing on the path made Seras take the safety off the rifle. "Looks like trouble," Leon said.

One of the men walked forward, unarmed, with his arms stiff at his sides. His eyes glowed red in the darkness, reflecting Leon's flashlight. Behind the old man was another, younger one, holding a torch.

As Leon aimed, the red dot his laser sight falling on the man's forehead, the man began to twitch. Suddenly, something erupted from the top of the man's skull and burst upward, obliterating his head completely.

It looked a bit like a squid was protruding from the man's neck. Pulsing organ-like structures surrounded by tentacles waved in the air, while in the center a long, whip-like appendage with a sharp bone-blade swing around viciously. "Watch out!" Seras shouted as the blade struck at Leon with blinding speed.

Leon ducked and jumped backward, narrowly avoiding having his skull cleaved. The situation was eerily reminiscent of another creature she had once encountered that attacked with its tongue. Seras wondered if Leon had seen the same creature, back in Raccoon City.

He put three bullets directly into the meaty part of the creature, right where it connected with the neck of the man it was infesting. There was a pop and wash of bloody fluid as the creature seemed to deflate. The man fell to his knees and disintegrated along with the parasite.

Leon didn't miss a beat in shooting the torch wielder in the head, killing him. He too melted as Leon continued forward as though nothing had happened. "Since when can they do that?" Seras said, walking fast to keep up.

"Since it got dark," Leon said. "Don't quote me, but I think the parasite itself is sensitive to light."

She looked down at her chest and felt intense revulsion that a creature like what she had just seen pop a man's head off was growing inside her. She didn't think she could heal having her head torn to pieces. "What do you know about the parasite?" she asked.

"Aside from the fact that you've got one growing inside you, not much," Leon said.

"How do you kno…is there a way to get it out?"

"Probably," Leon said. "From what that Luis guy said, it can be removed with surgery if it's young enough. Once it's an adult, you can't get it out without killing the host…the human host, that is. I've got no clue how it works for _vampires_…"

"What's that supposed to mean?" she said, running to walk next to him.

He looked at Seras with a slight squint. "No offense, Seras, but vampires? Wow."

Casting a glance back at the melted villagers who had been infested with mind controlling parasites, she gave Leon a dirty look. "W-what? You…you think I'm a freak don't you…"

Leon shrugged and opened his mouth, making no sound as he thought of what to say. "No, not…really. You're fairly normal."

Here it was again, Seras thought. She was standing right next to the man, but she felt miles away. It had been the same with nearly everyone she had met outside Hellsing. Jill, Carlos, Sherry, she had fought monsters alongside them all, but it always felt as though she were a third party. Something other than human, standing between man and monster.

"Here we are," Leon said as they came to the river. It was pouring out from a tunnel in the hill where it flowed down and over a fall. Leon and Seras walked along the bank until they came to pulley fashioned from wood at the cliff's edge.

Looking down, Seras could see an intricate setup of towers, pulleys and levers. It looked as though the villagers used the river to not only control the level of the lake, but to transport cargo and small boats.

"Alright," Leon said. "I'll go down the rope and stop the water. You cover me with the rifle and come down when the flow has stopped."

Seras lay prone on the ground overlooking the edge as Leon repelled down the side using the rope. Once he was on the ground, Seras waited to see if he would attract the attention of any villagers.

As he made his way towards the open sluice gate, where a small footbridge was built over the river, a villager that had been crouched in one of the towers shouted a warning. Seras shot him through the head, but the damage was done. Out of the dark places near the falls came roughly fifteen villagers, all bearing their trademark farming tools.

She began firing into the crowd, trying for lethal headshots, but taking what she could get. The .308 shells, when they didn't blow a villager's parasite infested brain out, caused serious, debilitating wounds, making it easy for Leon to finish them off with his pistol.

She ran out of bullets, but had killed enough to make things easy for someone with Leon's skill. As she ejected the last empty shell, pain fired through her back, just off her spinal column, making her scream and convulse. She felt a foot come down on her back, and something slide roughly out of her back.

Rolling over and in massive pain, she saw a chubby faced, bearded villager getting ready to bring his axe down on her again. He swung, Seras brought her knee up to protect her abdomen and caught the blade in the shin. The axe sunk deep into her shin, sending blood and bone chips spattering.

Screaming with pain and rage, she grabbed the rifle by the barrel and hurled it at the villager. The stock struck him in the jaw, knocking him backward. She grabbed the axe, which had fallen out of her, and used it to prop herself up on her good leg. The damaged support muscles in her back sent pain through her entire body, making her want to collapse and not move.

Her anger took over and vetoed all other desires. As the villager turned his head back towards her, his jaw broken, she buried the axe into the side of his head. He fell and began to twitch as Seras backed away, using the axe to balance herself. His head exploded, revealing the lethal parasite beneath.

Seras brought the axe down on it, falling at the same time. It flailed for a bit, nearly slashing her face, but died and melted like the others.

She drew her gun and kept an eye on the pathway to the lake in case any more surprises came wander up to try and kill her. Wet, dirty, bleeding, and miserable, she waited for the sound of the sluice gate to close. With a loud, high pitched screech, the sound of flowing water stopped.

The sharp pain in her back and leg slowly began to dull as he blood worked to close the wounds. Moving about too much would slow the process, so she relaxed and let her body work.

"Seras!" Leon shouted from bellow. "Seras!"

"I'm alright!" she yelled back, making her wince in pain. "Just a moment."

She could hear him huff and puff as his feet scraped against the rock while he climbed up the side. "Seras!" he shouted, running over to her once he'd gained the ledge. "What happened?"

"Some bloke with an axe," she said. "I'll be fine, just give me a minute."

Leon inspected her wounds, amazed at how quickly they were healing. "I take back what I said earlier," he said.

"Really?" she said, feeling a little better.

"Yeah. You're not normal at all," he said, not unkindly. Joke or not, Seras's spirits dipped back down. "I'm kidding," he said, gently patting her shoulder.

"Whatever," she said, closing her eyes and sighing.

**To be continued…**


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine.**

When Leon removed the plate-size disk from the stone dais, the wall in the back of the chamber slid up, sending stone dust down onto the floor. "Who builds stuff like this, really?" Seras said, following Leon up the stairs.

"It looks as though the villagers have been crazy like this for a long time," Leon said. "Who knows what they've been able to set up."

Patting the box of rifle bullets Leon had given her, she adjusted the rifle on her back and worried about what Leon had said. She had come in thinking she would have to rescue a hostage from a bunch of nutty cultists and hadn't expected to encounter an entrenched guerilla army made up of monsters and mutants.

They followed the carved stone stairway up to where it led into an underground warehouse. Like the building she had entered before crossing the lake, it was filled with improvised weapons and food. "Looks like they still need to eat," Seras said. "Should we light this place on fire or something?"

Leon chuckled, heading towards a ladder. "Tempting, but that might backfire on us. Besides, it's not our mission, and what good would it amount to in the end?"

She supposed that was true, as she followed him up the ladder. Once all was said and done, if Hellsing sent her back with her Harkonnen cannon, along with Alucard and perhaps even Walter, it wouldn't matter how much food they had stockpiled.

Up a short set of steps and through a trap door was a familiar setting. The arena made from wooden poles was now lit by torches. Seras half expected to see a Roman emperor sitting in a chair above it all with his thumb out.

As they moved across the arena, an ominous feeling overcame Seras. The wooden gate behind her closed and she realized it was too late to act upon her instincts. "Crap," Leon said. "What is it this time?"

The large door to the west swung open, and about a dozen villagers came out. Steeling herself for yet another villager fight, she furrowed her brow, puzzled at the chains they were dragging behind them.

A horrible roar tore the air, making the villagers drop the chains and back up as what they had been dragging came into view.

"A giant?" Seras said. "A bloody giant…"

The grey, hunchbacked humanoid lumbered out, howling and snarling angrily. It was over ten meters high, clothed in a giant loincloth with large metal shackles on his wrists. His all too human face was twisted out of proportion, showing his incomplete set of filthy, oversized teeth.

With a sweep of its arm, it sent the villagers who had been dragging it along into a pile of rocks. Still angry at its tormentors, it began slapping their bodies, crushing and killing those who had survived its first attack.

Seeing no reason to fight such a beast, Seras turned only to have a wooden portcullis drop in front of their only remaining exit. "Scatter!" Leon shouted, as the giant turned its attention towards them.

She ran behind one of the three sheds and watched from around the corner as it lumbered after Leon. The door the creature had come out of was open, but she didn't know if it led to an enclosed pen, or if it was a pathway they could use to escape.

Moving behind the shacks to get a better look, she saw Leon get cornered against a tree. As the thing made to club him with its fist, he ran forward and rolled beneath its thick legs. The creature hit the tree instead, snapping it down like a twig. Leon cast a glance back at the door the creature had come from, reached into his pocket, grabbed the disk and threw it towards the shacks. "Save Ashley!" he shouted, running to the exit.

The creature had picked up the tree it had felled and turned to face Leon, who was antagonizing it loudly. She wanted to shout at him, to tell him to let her handle the monster while he saved the girl, but she stifled the urge. He had already set the plan into motion and trying to call it back now wouldn't help anyone.

Bellowing in anger, it followed Leon as he ran back into its pen and up a stony hill. She didn't move for a moment, ensuring that the giant wouldn't decide to turn around and come back.

When she felt the coast was clear, she walked out and picked up the disk. She also could hear Spanish muttering coming from the door leading back to the cliffside bridge. The door slid open, revealing three confused villagers.

She gave them no time to realize their mistake. Drawing her machete on the run, she sliced off the head of a man without knocking off his cap. Shouting, the other two threw punches, which she ducked.

A few swings of the blade and she had made short work of the two villagers. With the disk tucked under her left arm, she backtracked over the boardwalk along the cliffside. With the rain and wind beating down on her, she was having some concerns about how she was going to cross the point where she had sent the greater part of a mob plummeting into the water bellow.

She was pleased to see that they had done a passable job of putting the bridge back together. They had even fixed the original gap that had made her standoff possible. Crossing it, she stopped as she set foot back on solid dirt.

Sensing she was being watched, she squinted into the darkness and rain. At the top of the hill was a shape, low to the ground and not human.

Setting the disk on the ground, she un-shouldered her rifle and looked through the scope, even though she didn't need to. A flash of lighting illuminated the threat. A wolf, much larger than the one she had freed earlier that day, was standing at the top of the hill, its eyes glowing green. Something on its back caught her eye. Tentacles, small ones, waving gently in the breeze.

She squeezed the trigger and shot the top of the animals skull off. It staggered as the creature nesting with it let out a high pitched squeal and opened its vertical mouth set into the wolf's head.

For her next shot, she had to compensate for the wolf running down the hill towards her. Aiming low, she hit the parasite dead center, making the wolf fall forward, spasm, and melt.

Growling from up the hill let her know she wasn't finished. Ejecting the spent shell, she drew the gun level in time to see another wolf running down at her. She fired, hoping to hit the parasite within or at least strike the spine and stop it for another shot.

One shot was all she needed. The infested wolf fell and died like the one before it. Hearing no more growling, she made her way up to the church and saw that the wolves had been the only guards.

Fitting the disk into a slot in the church's steel door, she heard the lock click. Entering, she was ready for a close quarters battle with any villagers who were guarding the church.

Much to her great relief, there were no enemies within the church. It was, however, small and over-decorated. Paintings of the hooded man she had seen in the village were all over the walls. Ornate candleholders and hanging insignias focused the eye towards the front of the church where the ornate pew sat beneath a stained glass window depicting the cult's bizarre insignia.

Behind the pillars holding up the church on either side, were small hallways. One contained a pair of barrels and grain sacks, while the other had a steel ladder leading up to a balcony that encircled three sides of the church.

She climbed the ladder, not seeing any rooms on the ground floor aside from a door leading outside into what used to be a woodshed, but had since lost its roof.

There was one door at the top of the ladder. It was locked, but Seras turned the knob until it broke, letting it swing open. She walked in and was struck in the face by a wooden box. Backing up and holding a bloody nose, Seras looked up in time to see another box fly at her. She knocked it away with her arm and stormed into the room.

"Stay away!" Ashley Graham shouted firmly in her high, girlish voice.

"Ow, stop it," Seras said, cornering Ashley as she retreated into the corner of the small storage room. "I'm not one of them."

Ashley, now seated on the floor, looked up at Seras. She was wearing knee high brown boots, a green skirt with an orange shirt and a brown sweater tied around her neck by the sleeves. Her large brown eyes looked Seras up and down with no small amount of fear and suspicion.

Looking down at herself, it dawned on Seras that she did look like something out of a horror movie. Her clothes were dirty, torn and bloodstained, and the dripping machete she was carrying didn't help matters.

Dropping the weapon, she got to her knees. "Ashley, my name is Seras Victoria. I'm with the British government, I'm also here with a man from the states. His name is Leon. I'm here to rescue you."

Ashley, still scared due to Seras's appearance, studied her carefully. Nodding, she finally stood up. "Sorry about hitting you with the box. Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Seras said, deciding she liked Ashley. Throwing a box at her captors was something she too would do in Ashley's situation. "You did the right thing, all things considering."

Seras had a few questions for Ashley, such as how she managed to get captured and who was leading the cult, but they would have to wait. They climbed down the ladder and walked out into the center isle of the church, where the door was opening.

In walked a man Seras recognized; the man in the purple hood from all the paintings she had seen around the village. He was carrying a bizarre looking staff tipped with what looked like a Plaga parasite. He was also flanked by two extremely pale men wearing black roped and carrying crossbows.

"Good evening, Ms. Victoria," he said. "My name is Lord Osmond Saddler, the leader of this fine religious community. It's so nice to finally meet you."

Seras shunted Ashley behind her and drew her pistol. "Get out of the way," Seras said. "Or I'll kill you."

"My, my, such harsh words," he said, his voice smooth, his English perfect. "But I'm afraid dear Ashley must stay with us a while longer."

Remembering that there was a door leading outside to her left, Seras was careful not to signal with her body language that she was about to bolt for it. "What for? Is this some kind of ransom thing?" she asked.

Saddler laughed, much like an kindly grandfather being told a joke. "No, no, money is not a problem for us. Some recent business dealings have seen to that. We simply intend to give Ashley our gift and send her back to the White House. There, she will spread our enlightenment to America's leaders, thus giving us control of the most powerful country in the world."

Seras laughed. "World domination? Charming."

Saddler smiled, shrugging a little. "It's a little cliché, I'll admit, but with Las Plagas, we can bring order and light to this world filled with chaos and darkness. Won't you reconsider, and hand Ashley back over to us?"

Seras flipped her head, sending a lock of her blond hair out of her eyes. "Piss off."

"Kill her," Saddler said, as though her were ordering a drink at a restaurant.

Seras fired and ducked, hoping Ashley would have the sense to do the same. The two crossbow bolts thudded into the wall above the pew, as Seras returned fire. She wasn't sure who she hit, if anyone, but she noticed that Saddler didn't so much as flinch.

Grabbing Ashley and dragging her out the side door, she shut it behind her. Grabbing the biggest log she could find, she dropped it in front of the door and ran to the exit with Ashley.

She kicked the door open and was glad that at least it wasn't raining anymore. "Run," Seras said. "Before he realizes we're behind him."

They ran down the hill past the graveyard, Seras pacing herself so she didn't outrun Ashley. Shooting a glance behind her, she couldn't see Saddler or any of his men perusing, but wasn't comforted much. Now that she had Ashley under her care, she would be assaulted more often and with greater ferocity. She also had to keep the girl alive.

**To be continued… **


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten.**

Seras made no attempt to contact Integra until she was back in Pueblo. Once there, she and Ashley quietly made their way into the town's watchtower, where they climbed to the top.

"Are you okay?" Seras asked, taking her radio from her pocket.

Ashley was breathing heavily, likely unused to running at such speeds for long distances. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Good. HQ, come in HQ. This is Seras, come in."

"Integra, report."

"I've recovered Ashley Graham. I'm in Pueblo now. Requesting evac," Seras said, tuning the radio a little to cut down on the static.

"We'll send a chopper. Has she been harmed?"

"No, she's fine. Kennedy, the American agent, we had to split up. He was being chased by a monster of some sort."

"He's not our problem," Integra said. "There's a house beyond the farm to the northeast. A helicopter will pick you up there. Did you happen to learn the meaning of this little stunt?"

"Yes," Seras said. "They planned to infect Ashley with the Las Plagas and then send her back to the White House, where she would spread it."

"Las Plagas, Seras. You don't add the the."

"What?"

Integra sighed. "Las is the plural version of the in Spanish. Las Plagas means The Plagues. When you say the Las Plagas, you're saying the The Plagues."

"Oh…"

"Never mind. From my talk with Kennedy, it seems your vampiric blood hasn't gotten rid of the parasite. The girl might also have already been infested."

Seras saw the look on Ashley's face, a mixture of confusion and fear. "Um, Sir…" Seras began to say.

"Just get to the extraction point and try not to feed from her. You've been wounded, your bloodlust might take over if you engage in another battle."

"She can hear you," Seras said through her teeth.

"What? Oh…just get to the extraction point. Integra out."

Seras turned the radio down and pocketed it. Scratching her head, and casting a sideling glance at a terrified Ashley, she thought of what to do next while an awkward silence settled over them.

"Y-you're a vampire?" Ashley said, sliding backwards. "H-how…w-what…?"

"Yes, I'm a vampire," Seras said. "But, uh, I'm a good vampire. I'm not going to eat you or anything."

Ashley's look didn't improve. "I heard what that woman said. You might go crazy and eat me."

Seras wanted to cry and scream at the same time. This was Sherry Birkin all over again. A frightened blond girl who she needed to protect from monsters, and was afraid Seras would drink her blood at the first opportunity.

Seras felt a warm hand touch hers and looked to see Ashley's concerned, yet still nervous, face. "I…I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. You rescued me, so I guess you can't be that bad."

Had she looked that sad and pathetic? She hoped not, but either way, came to the conclusion that she wasn't here to be Ashley's friend. In all likelihood, she would never see her again outside of the news once they parted ways. "We should be going," Seras said, stepping onto the ladder.

When she got to the ground, she stepped out of the tower ahead of Ashley and scanned the dark town. "Stop," she said, seeing the shapes of villagers standing in the shadows and ducking behind buildings. "Go back up the ladder and don't down until I call you. Take this too," Seras said, slinging the rifle over Ashley's shoulder. "Don't use it though."

Confused and afraid again, Ashley did as she was told and headed back up the ladder. Seras, machete in hand, gun ready to draw, walked out of the tower. "Lets just get this over with," she said, mostly to herself, but loud enough for the villagers to hear her.

As they came closer, she could see them better. There were nine of them, two with pitchforks, the other with hatchets and sickles. She wondered how well they could see in the dark.

She charged the two men with pitchforks first, not wanting to be stabbed through and weighed down by the handle if one managed a hit. They went down quickly once she cut the ends of their pitchforks off. A hatchet nearly hit her as she cut the hands off a sickle-wielding woman, but it struck the wall of the tower instead.

Before she knew it, all of the villagers were melting on the ground, leaving nothing but their soiled clothes. Her senses were on high alert, and aside from some sleepy, annoyed chickens, nothing was stirring in the village. "Clear," she said loudly.

It took Ashley a minute to get down the ladder. When she did, she handed the rifle off to Seras.

Seras shouldered it and wondered what had become of Leon. Integra had been cold when she said he wasn't her problem, but she was right. He likely had his own plans for escaping, and would have been radioed by someone letting him know Ashley had been secured.

Leading Ashley up the same hill she had traveled earlier that day, Seras kept her eyes peeled for more villagers. She didn't see the steel trap before she stepped on it, making it snap shut just bellow her knee. She shrieked, both in pain and anger from the traps teeth biting into her leg.

"Oh my God, are you alright?" Ashley said, coming close to Seras and looking down at her leg.

Seras used her strength to free herself from the trap and favored her good leg as she drew in long, hissing breaths. "Yeah, fine," she said. "Should've seen that coming."

"Can you still walk?" Ashley asked.

"I'll be right as rain in half a minute," Seras said, letting her leg heal. The trap hadn't been strong enough to break her leg, few traps were, but the teeth had given her a nasty cut, and had she been human, she would certainly get a nasty infection.

When it felt better, Seras tore a piece of wood from a nearby fence and used it to trigger traps on her way up the hill until they reached the farm. She saw a woman holding a torch standing on the scaffold adjacent to the barn and stopped.

She couldn't tell just how many were standing guard by the large wooden door that would lead to the extraction point, but she didn't want to pick a fight with Ashley unprotected and in the open.

"Follow me," Seras said, leading Ashley over to an empty chicken coop. "Lie down and keep quiet," she said, pointing to a clean spot on the coop's floor.

Wincing, Ashley got down on her stomach while Seras began to cover her in hay. "Hey," Ashley said, scrunching up her shoulders so the hay wouldn't go down her shirt and make her itch.

"It sure is," Seras said, smiling.

The villagers still hadn't seen her, their night vision most likely ruined by the torches they had set up near the large wooden gate. There were twelve of them in front of the gate, standing still, facing the farm. Twelve seemed to be the number of the average villager attack force, but perhaps she was over-thinking things too much.

Moving away from the chicken coop, towards the smaller barn, Seras shot the woman holding the torch on the scaffold. She fell forward, her torch hitting the ground before she did.

While the other villagers, roused from their bizarre stupor, came rushing forward towards their unseen attacker, Seras fired once more, taking out another villager. Lowering her gun and ejecting the spent shell, she ran around to the other side of the barn, trusting Ashley was hidden well enough.

From a new angle, she fired three more times, felling three villagers. Backtracking and loading more shells into the gun as she went, she ducked behind a pig trough and fired five more times, hitting her mark each time.

The two remaining villagers had ducked into the large barn, perhaps realizing that their charge into the darkness was futile. Not wanting to waste more bullets, she leaned the rifle against the barn wall and took her machete into where the two villagers had retreated.

A short man with a bushy beard greeted her with a Spanish phrase meaning "cunt" and came at her brandishing a hatchet. She cut his weapon hand off and then his head. The tall, thin man behind him tried to flank her, but she stepped into his knee, breaking it, causing him to fall. A downward stab with the machete onto his neck severed his head. Shoving the blade down his neck, she killed the parasite before it could crawl out, and stepped on the other one as it emerged.

"No need to be rude," she said, leaving the large barn and picking up the rifle.

Reloading the rifle while Ashley rose up out of the hay, she noticed something hanging from the small barn's peak. Squinting, she saw that it was some sort of blue medallion bearing the cult's insignia. There was another one hanging from a tree next to the large barn.

She took the one hanging from the tree and examined it. "What's that?" Ashley asked, looking over Seras's shoulder.

"I'm not sure," she said. "They're hanging all over the place though."

She used one of the villager's hatchets to dislodge the medallion from its spot high up on the smaller barn. Now that she had noticed that there were medallions, she could see them all over the place. Hanging from the windmill next to the barn, in the back of large barn, in its rafters, all in all, there were ten of blue cult medallions.

"Um, can I ask why we collected all these?" Ashley said, watching Seras pocket the medallions..

Seras stood, turning her head towards the large door blocking the path out of the farm. She remembered taking Chief Mendez's false eye after killing him and pondered Ashley's question. "Woman's intuition I suppose," she said. "Anything that awful cult would take time to hang up is probably worth taking down, too."

"If you say so," Ashley said, following Seras to the giant door. Seras guessed that it swung open, but her attempts to push it failed.

"Must be barred on the other side," Seras said. "Wait here."

Seras went beneath the scaffold and picked up two of the sharpest hatchets she could find. Giving Ashley the rifle and her machete, she jumped and stuck a hatchet into the wooden door.

Her strength was enough to burry the hatchets deep into the wood, thus supporting her weight. Before long, she was up and over the gate. Lifting the giant log barring the door, she threw it aside and kicked it open, allowing Ashley to pass through.

"It's almost over," Seras said, waiting for Ashley to catch up.

"Thank God," Ashley said. "Worst. Vacation. Ever."

Taking her weapons back from Ashley, Seras smiled. All in all, things could have been worse. She hadn't eaten anyone, Ashley was alive, and only a small population of innocent civilians had fallen victim to the machinations of a lunatic. Jogging up the hill, Seras gave the nearly complete mission her stamp of approval.

**To be continued...**


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven.**

Despite feeling as though she had already won, the closer Seras came to the well-made wooden bridge that led over a river, the more anxious she felt. Chalking it up to the fact she was about to cross running water at a low altitude, she kept walking, her gun drawn as she was no longer too worried about running out of bullets.

Before Seras and Ashley reached the bridge, footsteps crunching through the trees to their right made them both stop. Immediately Seras breathed a sigh of relief, as Leon and Luis came through the woods and onto the path.

"Looks like the ladies made it," Luis said. In his right hand, he held a revolver, making Seras remember how he had disappeared on her back at the house in the gorge.

"No thanks to you," Seras said. "Why did you run off like that earlier?"

All eyes were on Luis as he shrugged. "Alright, you got me. I haven't been exactly honest, but I'll tell you why as soon as we're outta here. And I wasn't sure I could trust you before."

"Forget it," she said and turned her head to Leon. "How did you get away from that thing?"

"I got behind it. It had a hug parasite growing in its back that it needed to live."

"Where's the helicopter?" Ashley asked, bringing them back to the problem at hand.

"It should be here any minute," Seras said. "Lets take cover in that house."

No sooner had she said that, shouts from behind made them all turn their heads. A mob of villagers, twice the size of the crowd that had come after her before, was running up the hill towards them.

Seras didn't notice the sickening sensation of crossing running water; she was to intent on getting inside and finding someplace to hide Ashley. Once they were in, Leon and Luis stayed on the ground floor of the simple structure, while Seras took Ashley up the stairs, making sure there were no surprises.

The entire upper half of the house was a large bedroom. Opening up an armoire, Seras pointed to the inside. "Hide in here. This is going to get ugly."

"What? You're kidding…"

"Just hide. You're the reason we're all here. If you get hurt, we get fired."

Seras took Ashley by the arm and half helped, half stuffed her into the armoire. As she shut the armoire's doors, the three windows on the top floor broke, one after the other.

Seeing the tops of ladders protruding over the sills and hearing gunfire from downstairs, it looked as though it was her job to keep the enemy from coming in through the upstairs windows.

The ladder at the window between the armoire and the bed was the first one she shoved away. None of the villagers had been on it, but two had made it halfway up the second near the front of the house.

And old, savage looking woman, was bringing a wrinkled grey foot over the window sill behind Seras. Her efforts earned her a machete in the stomach and a hard shove back out the window. She landed with a sickening crack, and had the ladder fall on her to boot after Seras shoved it away.

Taking the free moment to lay the rifle down on a table, Seras also ran to the stairs and looked down, checking on her two allies bellow. Luis and Leon had slid a bookcase in front of the door and were shooting through the open windows on either end of the house. Yelps of pain and anger were coming from outside, while Leon did most of the shooting with his semi-automatic pistol. Luis, although shooting less, was taking careful aim at the parasites sprouting from the necks of certain villagers.

She returned to the ladders, knocking down two that had come up and shoving a man off a third before sending the ladder back down. When she heard the wood of the same ladder hit the sill behind her, she had an idea.

Instead of shoving the ladder backward, Seras pulled it inside before the villagers bellow could get a foot on it. Walking it back to the window on the other side of the room, she dropped it and grabbed the other ladder.

This time, a villager had gotten a purchase on the ladder. Seras could feel his or her weight as she pulled the ladder up. With the villager balanced on the ether end with the sill working as a fulcrum, Seras worked her end up and down until the ladder snapped in two.

A balding man with a hatchet managed to climb in through the window while Seras had been busy with the second ladder. She threw up her forearm to block his overhead attack and had the blade knick her forearm. With his hatchet stopped, Seras used her other arm to give him a hard shove in the chest, which sent him tumbling back out the window into another man trying to climb up.

All of the villagers that weren't trying to break in through the bottom had gathered at the base of the ladder, providing a constant supply of villagers. Pulling up the ladder would be too hard, and give the one near the top the opportunity to attack her. Instead, she punched the woman next in line in the face, causing her to fall, and grabbed either side of the ladder.

With all of her strength, she pulled the two sides of the ladder in half, ruining it completely. "Seras!" shouted Leon, as he and Luis came up the stairs. "There's too many!"

Taking her machete, she ran to the stairs, aware that the amount of villagers trying to force their way in from the bottom was partially her fault. "Watch the windows for more ladders…I think I got them all though," Seras said.

The downstairs was packed with villagers shoulder to shoulder. At most, they could walk up the stairs two at a time, but doing so would limit their movement. Brandishing her machete, Seras was confident that using the stairs as a chokepoint would let her hold them off for a long, long time; at least until the helicopter arrived. They could then either climb to the roof or make a run for it after going out the window.

She split a villager's skull as he charged up the stairs and kicked him back down, tripping up the others. Resolving herself to the fact that she was in for a long battle, she didn't know whether to be relived or worried when a villager from the outside shouted the order to retreat.

It took a few shouts of "Vamos," to get the entire crowd out, and Seras did nothing to antagonize them as they left.

"Looks like they're backing off," Luis said.

"Good, we were running low on bullets," Leon said, looking around the room. "Where's Ashley?"

Ashley came tumbling out of the Armoire, landing hard on her rear. "Ow," she said, getting to her feet. "Did they all leave?"

Leon, Luis, and Ashley looked out the window to see the entire cadre of villagers make their way across the wooden bridge. Standing behind them, up on her toes, Seras watched the villagers begin hacking at the bridge once they got to the other side. With all of them working at it, it fell in short order.

"What was the sense in that?" Seras asked as her radio beeped.

"Dunno," Luis said, looking at Ashley. "They're up to something though."

Seras turned a knob on the radio, watching Ashley look uncomfortable at Luis's attention. "This is Seras," she said.

"It's Integra. I've got some bad news."

All eyes were on her suddenly. "What is it?" Seras asked, hoping it had nothing to do with the villager's mysterious withdrawal.

"The chopper we sent to pick you up was shot down. They're a bit better equipped than we thought. We're going to prep another one, but I don't want to risk losing another chopper. We'll have to set the extraction point somewhere more secure. What's your current status?"

Seras told her about what had happened since their last transmission. "Is Sera there with you?" Integra asked.

"Yes," she said. "Did you run that background check on him?"

There was a short silence and for a moment Seras didn't think Integra would say anything about Luis. "Yes. He was never a cop, although he is a native to that area. He's got a PhD in biology and has specialized in parasite research for most of his professional life."

Luis coughed uncomfortably and hung his head. "I, uh, can explain," he said.

"That would be a good idea," Leon said, turning towards him and doing all but raise his gun.

"I used to work for Saddler as a researcher," Luis said. "But I couldn't go along with what they were doing any longer. That's kinda why you found me locked up in that house."

"Have you been infested?" Leon asked.

"I was…that was actually what made me quit. I got the thing removed though, and I can do the same for you," he said nodding towards Ashley.

"What about me?" Seras asked.

"Well, after I heard you were a vampire, I'm not so sure," he said. "It depends on whether or not the parasite has become a vampire too…"

"Seras," came Integra's voice over the radio. "You can survive having the thing cut out. If you feel your control slipping, have Kennedy or Sera remove it."

The look on Luis and Leon's face was only half as distressed as the one on Seras. Ashley looked a little ill as well. Having a large parasite cut from her chest by a man with a combat knife was not a pleasant thought at all. Nor was the fact that it would likely have to be done at some point.

"Relax, chica," Luis said. "There's drugs that slow the growth, and the operation that removes the parasite doesn't involve cutting. If you let me, I can get you the drug and maybe we can get to the machine that does the procedure."

"Where's the machine?" Leon asked.

Luis ran his hand through his long, dark hair and sighed. "Hoo boy…on an island a few kilometers from here. The drugs are closer though, near a castle."

"A castle?" Ashley asked. "Really?"

"Yeah, only there ain't no prince running the joint. Still, we gotta go there for the drug and through it for the machine."

"At the very least you need to get those drugs for the girl," Integra said, able to hear their conversation. "I'll report to you after we've done more satellite recon. Perhaps the only place to land a chopper will be on the island he was talking about. Seras, under no circumstances are you to let that girl out of your sight, am I clear?"

That made Leon raise an eyebrow. "Hey, wait just a minute," he said, speaking to the radio as Seras held it out. She imagined it having blond hair, glasses, and a cigar. "We appreciate your help and all, but this is an American problem."

"Actually, Mr. Kennedy, it became a Hellsing problem the moment we discovered Millennium agents were involved. Parasite nothing, if the girl happens to be implanted with a FREAK chip, it won't become apparent until it's activated. If she eats her father and his cabinet, Hellsing will be to blame."

Leon looked puzzled, Luis concerned, and Ashley pale with horror. "F-Freak chip? What is she talking about? How many things have been put in me?"

Seras sighed. "I think what Sir Integra is trying to say is that because I'm a horrible vampire and can survive better, it's imperative that I remain with Ashley, as a meat shield if nothing else, while you and Luis recover the drug that will save her."

"Or maybe you should go with Luis, and I should stay with Ashley," Leon said. "That way if you lose it and eat someone, it's him and not her."

"I can't disobey Sir Integra's orders," Seras said.

"Well then maybe she should give you different orders," Leon said loudly.

"Out of the question," Integra said. "If she's a FREAK, she'll kill you the moment you're alone and have your back turned. Agent Victoria would be less vulnerable to such an attack."

"People!" Ashley shouted. "I don't what you're all talking about, freak chips and me attacking people, but this is stupid and we don't have time for it. I don't care who I go with, so long as we all get out of here!"

Seras mentally gave Ashley points for being reasonable. "She's right, but…"

"But never mind," Leon said, flipping his hair from his eyes. "Look, I trusted you before to rescue Ashley and I still trust you. It looks like your boss isn't going to stop being a hard-ass, so I'll go with Luis while you head for that castle."

"We should go now," Luis said. "Before their parasites get any bigger."

The four of them headed down the stairs and out in back of the house. There they found a shed with a torch burning beside it sitting between two passageways into the hillside. "We'll go left," Luis said. "Both ways eventually go to the castle, but I think the one on the right is the fastest. We need to make a detour all the same."

"See you on the other side," Seras said, looking at Leon.

He nodded coolly and followed Luis while Seras went down the right side with Ashley following close behind.

**To be continued…**


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve.**

The road Seras and Ashley walked had been blasted out by dynamite. The ground was dry and the walls of the small canyon bore the telltale signs of mining work. Pulleys and wooden worker huts had been built high up on the walls, and Seras noticed a boulder had been placed at the top of the cliff above them and rigged to be knocked down.

"Not this time," Seras said, drawing her gun and firing at the wooden wedge, dislodging it. The boulder tumbled off the side and shattered into three pieces when it hit the ground.

"Ouch," Ashley said as they walked past the ruined boulder. "That would've hurt."

"For sure," Seras said. "It's like they planned on fighting off a ground assault at some point. These traps couldn't have all been set with just us in mind."

They walked past a spot where another trail came down and intersected with the one they were on. Seras gave a brief glance up it, but didn't think it was the way they wanted to go. It did, however, make her worry that villagers would use it to attack from behind.

The boulder trap hadn't looked to be manned, making Seras think the villagers weren't set up on this side of the river. It looked as though most had gone back over the bridge towards Pueblo.

Coming to a log wall built to block the path, Seras laughed when she saw the wall's door. Three rusty chains had been looped through the separations in the door and had been padlocked together. "They've locked the door…looks like we're done for," she said gravely to Ashley, who smiled.

Seras kicked the door in, snapping one of the chain's links. She was glad she could make Ashley smile; after the conversation that had gone down in the house after the siege, the girl had been quiet. Seras didn't blame her, not after the amount of confusion that had been put into her by the argument between Leon and Sir Integra.

"Seras," Ashley said. "Um, can I ask you something?"

"Anything," Seras said, looking up, mindful of attacks from above.

"Um, what did that woman on the radio mean by calling me a freak?"

Seras stopped and took a quick glance behind her. She took Ashley by the arm, who was now looking worried, and pulled her gently behind the wooden wall. "It's FREAK, all caps, and it basically means an artificial vampire."

Ashley swallowed hard and searched Seras's face. "And you're a real vampire, right?"

Seras nodded. "Yes, I was bitten by a vampire and turned. Artificial vampires are created surgically by implanting something called a FREAK chip into a person's body."

She could see Ashley discretely look her bare arms over for scars or marks. Seras could see a small bruise on her neck where she had received La Plaga parasite injection. "I only remember being injected. I don't remember having surgery," Ashley said. "I'd remember if they did it, right?"

Seras didn't know, but she nodded her head anyway. "I think you'd know if you had been implanted with a FREAK chip," she said.

"Oh…if you say so," Ashley said. "This is all kind of weird."

Something that sounded like it was the size of an elephant let out a scream from behind them. Feeling the earth shake, Seras peered through the opening in the wooden wall and saw that the pathway they had gone by had indeed allowed something to come up from behind.

A giant, much like the one that had chased Leon before, was walking down the path towards them. This one had no shackles and its chin was less pronounced, but it was just as aggressive and determined to kill as the other one had been.

She didn't need to tell Ashley to run. As she followed the girl down the canyon and around some digging equipment she heard the monster destroy the barrier behind them. Behind the wheelbarrows and shovels was a series of three small shacks, not unlike the ones in the arena. "Ashley, hide!" Seras shouted.

The girl ducked into the middle shack while Seras kept running. She stopped at the last shack and drew her pistol. As the giant's grey, idiot face came into view, she put a bullet in its cheek to get its attention. "Over here!" Seras yelled. "This way!"

Seras backed up quickly, making sure the mutant humanoid was going after and not Ashley. Giving her a look of complete hated and bellowing, sending spittle flying out of its malformed mouth, it broke into a run past the three shacks.

Running, Seras wondered how she was going to get behind the creature and attack the parasite in its back. The rifle was clattering uncomfortably against her body and she swore when she saw that there was another wall built into the canyon with a chained-up door.

She shot one of the chains on the run, allowing her to kick the door open and go through it. About seventy meters ahead, the canyon ended in a high stone wall with a thick door built into it. From where she was, Seras could see the large lock on the door and knew she wouldn't be able to break it before the giant got close to her.

Putting as much distance between her and the monster as she could, she turned and thought about how to get around it. The canyon was narrow, but perhaps she could run between its legs or dart around the side.

Neither option looked good as the thing came towards her. She couldn't believe how large it was. As she tried to gauge its size by the canyon wall, she noticed another boulder, like the one she had seen coming in, resting at the edge of the top of the canyon, held up only by a stick.

She had to stifle a laugh; it was almost too perfect. Taking aim with her pistol, she waited for the brute to walk under the precarious boulder. As soon as it did, Seras fired, dislodging the wooden support and sending the boulder falling.

It struck the creature hard on the head, caving the top of its skull and sending one red-veined eyeball popping out of the ruined socket. With a groan, the creature fell forward and didn't move, the boulder pinning the thick pink tube that writhed from the creatures back.

With her machete, she hacked the four foot, writhing thing to death and called for Ashley. With a disgusted look on her face, Ashley emerged from the hut and walked over to Seras's side as she stood looking at the creature.

"It smells," Ashley said.

Seras could smell the blood, but it wasn't the sweet smell of anything she might like to drink; it had a watery, sewer-ish smell to it and didn't look much better. "This is Umbrella all over again," Seras said. "This was once a person, but that parasite turned him into this."

"Umbrella?" Ashley asked. "Is that that big company that got shut down for doing all of those experiments?"

"After its executive board was assassinated," Seras said, remembering the day she walked into a board meeting at Umbrella's European headquarters and shot everyone in the room. While the British government had sanctioned the attack, it had been investigated by Interpol as a terrorist act, with the investigation being inconclusive. It hadn't stopped Umbrella's assets from being frozen in nearly every civilized nation in the world though.

"Oh yeah…I don't remember much about it."

Seras looked at the girl and figured she might have bee to young to be much interested in the news when it all happened. "Either way, these parasites and this cult are bringing back some bad memories," Seras said.

Ashley looked like she wanted to pry, but Seras headed quickly towards the heavy door she had been running towards, hoping it was either unlocked or able to be forced down. "What is it with these people and building doors outside?" Seras asked, tugging the handle.

"I don't know, but this was sitting on a table in that shack," Ashley said, holding out a large simple key.

Seras took it and tried the lock. The door opened with a creek and Seras could see an access road running past a shed and up a short hill. At the top of the hill was a large double door with some kind of seal in the shape of a face in the center.

There was a cliff to their left with a modified ski lift running from the door to some industrial-looking building on the other side. Seras could see the wall of a large castle, complete with towers looming over the trees about half a mile away. The yellow lights in the castle's many windows gave Seras a bad feeling about going towards it. There was no telling what Los Illuminados had set up for them if they had to enter the castle.

"Do we have to take that lift?" Ashley asked, pointing to the mechanical chairs as they made their rounds.

The soft red light coming from the empty left eye of the face on the door made Seras think not. Plucking Mendez's false eye from her pocket, she held it up to the light and smiled as something mechanical clicked. "I think this is the way we want," she said. "I'm glad I kept this."

"Kept what?" Ashley said, looking at Seras's hands.

"Bitores Mendez's fake eye. He seemed upset when he thought I had shot it, so I took it. Looks like I was right and it _is_ important."

Slowly, the door slid open, revealing a long, steep hill winding up towards the castle. "Lets go," Seras said.

Expecting the hill to be booby trapped, Seras walked slowly and paid close attention to her senses. Her biggest fear was another giant crashing though the woods after them. With no more boulders to drop on their heads, she didn't know she would kill one if it attacked.

Instead, the familiar and hated sound of Spanish villagers shouting in anger floated up the hill and into her ears. Turning, Seras saw another large mob, easily twice the size of any she had seen, running up the road.

"Oh no," Ashley said.

"Run, we've got a lead on them," Seras said, putting her hand on Ashley's back, urging her to run as fast as she could up the hill.

Not knowing what would be at the top of the hill, Seras got the sick feeling that they had walked into their last stand. Even if she fired rounds from the rifle into the small army bellow, she wouldn't kill all of them. She would run out of handgun bullets and be forced to use the machete; assuming she wasn't surrounded and overpowered, she wouldn't be able to protect Ashley and fight at the same time.

When they gained the top of the hill, Seras saw that the castle was on the other side of a deep gorge. Luckily, the drawbridge was down and unguarded. Ashley didn't need to be told to run across it, even though she was breathing louder than ever and had slowed down significantly.

They made it to the other side of the drawbridge and Seras stopped to look back. Ashley had doubled over and was holding her chest, huffing air as hard as she could. The villagers were nearly at the top of the hill and Seras turned back to look for hiding places within the castle.

Instead, she saw two wooden cranks on either side of the wall. "Ashley, turn that crank," she said, going to the one closet to her and turning it.

Red faced and sweating, Ashley did as she was told and worked the crank. The bridge began to rise, more from Seras's effort than Ashley's. The girl was nearly falling down every time she rolled the crank away from her.

Slowly but surely, the drawbridge rose. Seras could hear a few villagers attempt to scramble up over the edge, but fall off, unable to hang on. Once the bridge had slid into place, Ashley fell down on her buttocks and looked as though she might vomit.

"Are you alright?" Seras asked.

Ashley was only able to nod. Seras decided she had simply exhausted herself and looked over to the castle's courtyard, where a set of stone steps led up a short inner wall and down to a door.

While Ashley sucked in air, Seras rubbed her stomach, not quite noticing the faint, dull ache of hunger.

**To be continued…**


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen.**

Ashley needed ten minutes to recover from the ordeal of making it into the castle before being overtaken by a giant mob of crazed villagers. After she had stood up and taken a few steps, she began coughing.

Aside from looking concerned, there was little Seras could do to offer her comfort. She had spent the six years since Raccoon City learning to be a better soldier and a better vampire, not a better human. She didn't know if she should put her arm on Ashley's back or offer her a tissue (which she didn't have anyway).

"Better?" Seras said, once Ashley had stopped coughing.

Looking at the tiny blood droplets on her fingers, Ashley shook her head. "I just want it out of me," she said.

"Lets find Leon and Luis," Seras said. "I'm sure Luis knows of other ways in, aside from the drawbridge."

Seras led the way up a set of stairs onto a parapet. Her sensitive ears could hear what sounded like chanting coming from beyond the inner wall, but she made her way to the red steel door at the end of the walk all the same.

The door scuffed against the stone and creaked loudly, making Seras cringe. Hearing no change in the chanting, she continued on up a set of circular stairs that led to a stone landing.

She stopped, seeing torches atop a tower in front of her. Between the torches was a wooden catapult, manned by two men in black robes. Their heads were craned up, looking at the night sky and the chanting seemed to be coming from them. "Morir es vivir," Seras said, sounding out in an English accent the words they were saying over and over again.

"What does that mean?" Ashley whispered, standing behind Seras as she kept close to the stone wall of the tower beside them.

"Something like dying is living…I think," she said. "This must be the actual cult. I'll also bet that catapult is aimed down here." She removed the rifle from her shoulder and leaned it against the wall. "Stay put. Scream if something comes up behind you."

"Where are you going?" Ashley whispered as Seras crouch and moved over to the right side of the landing, near the edge. There, she crouched on her stomach and crawled in the direction the first tower.

Now that she could see down to the left, she saw two other towers on the other end, both on either side of a raised portcullis. She guessed that together, they could cover the entire pathway in whatever it was they were shooting, rocks most likely.

Creeping back slowly so the men down on the other end wouldn't see her, she retrieved the rifle. Thinking that the closest tower was designed to attack the closets invaders, she took aim at one of the men in a black robe next to the nearest catapult.

She fired and moved over to the next one without looking to see if she had hit. The second hooded figure went down while looking at the other one. With both dead, she ran out into the open, took aim, and killed one of the catapult crewmen on the right.

Flame burst from both catapult stations shortly before they fired, sending burning chunks of something into the air. Seras backed up, but gauged that she was in little danger. As the globs hit the wide stone pathway, they spread fast-burning flame all over.

Aiming over the flame, she killed the last crewman on the right and quickly popped the skull of another on the left. Out of shells, she ran back to Ashley, who was out of sight from the catapult.

She only loaded one bullet into the gun and then ran back out, wanting to shoot the last one before he reloaded the catapult or called for reinforcements. She could only see the top of his head as he worked to reset the catapult, but it was enough. The top of head lifted off, knocking him into a torch which fell into the ammo supply.

With a whoosh of flame, the tower on the left side of the portcullis lit up like a beacon. Seeing that the fire on the ground in front of her was burning out, she shouted for Ashley to follow her as they ran for the entrance to the inner castle.

The castle's inner walls threatened to go off into confusing twists and turns, but to Seras's relief, the layout seemed fairly linear. Being no great student of architecture, she could only guess as to how old the castle was. Climbing more stone stairs onto another landing with more towers, she saw that some parts of the castle had rusted cannons mounted on them with the apparent ability to rotate.

"Why are they aimed into the courtyard?" Ashley asked, pointing to one of the cannons that had been aimed at a large door from across the walkways between towers.

The cannon in question was next to a large stone gazebo, which made Seras suspicious. Heading towards the cannon, she caught sight of the trap that had been set. Inside the gazebo was another man in a black robe, only instead of a hood he was wearing a metal helmet fashioned to look like a skull that covered all of his features.

Carrying a large scythe and walking towards her with the demeanor of someone who's clever plan had been thwarted, he began to chant "Muere, muere, muere."

"Here's your muere," Seras said, drawing her pistol and shooting him in the head. The bullet bounced off with a loud ping, prompting the man to stop. With a twist in his hips, he wound up and threw the scythe (a tool not designed to be thrown) like an expert.

"Duck!" Seras shouted, following her own command. The scythe flew over her head and clattered on the stone behind her. Before she stood up, she fired two shots at the man's legs, hitting one of his knees.

Off balance, he made an attempt to stop Seras from running towards him, grabbing him by the robes, and throwing him over the side, but failed. He plummeted thirty feet and struck the stone floor bellow with a loud clang.

"Serves him right," Seras said, looking to the cannon. "He was going to shoot us."

"Don't they want me hostage or something?" Ashley asked, picking up a long wooden match that had been set on the cannon. "If they blow me up, the plan is kind of ruined."

"I don't think they're as coordinated as they would like us to think," Seras said, plucking the match from Ashley's hand and lighting along the rusted outside of the cannon.

Ashley quickly plugged her ears and stood back as Seras touched the flame to the small dish of black power on their end of the cannon. With a bang she felt in her guts, she cannon fired, sending a ball into the door they had been about to enter, knocking it down.

Coughing from the smoke, Ashley waved her hand in front of her face and looked to the pile of splinters where the door had been. "Probably locked anyway," she said.

Going through the destroyed door, they found themselves in yet another series of walkways and corners that threatened to get them lost but never did. Oddly enough, Seras would have felt better about a less linear pathway. The current setup meant that if Leon and Luis didn't come up behind them, they would only be able to meet deeper inside the castle, what with the drawbridge up and an army of villagers outside.

Finally, they came to a large, ornate door that led into one of the castle's main sections. Seras could tell that they were truly inside from the red carpet running down a long hall, flanked by pillars. The most dominant feature of the giant room was the two Grecian statues hanging upside down from the ceiling. As they passed beneath them, Seras could see that they were double sided. "Juno," Ashley said. "That's a Greek goddess of doorways, I think."

Seras thought it was the goddess of beginnings and endings, but she couldn't be sure. The cultist's chanting made slightly more sense now, but she was still in the dark on the cult's finer religious points.

Past the statues, the hall continued until it came to a set of stairs leading up on either side to a second floor balcony. The sound of footsteps and maniacal laughter echoed through the hallway chamber, making Seras draw her pistol and usher Ashley behind her.

Four figures stepped into view at the top of the stairs. On either end were two tall hooded shapes, one in back and the other in red. Their faces were concealed but Seras could see their glowing yellow eyes and the faint trace of mouthparts that belonged to insects, not humans.

The laughter belonged to a short, nearly child-sized, human, dressed in a blue outfit that reminded Seras of a pirate. His skin was pale and wrinkled and his hair grey. He began to applaud as he looked down on Seras and Ashley, his laughter tittering away.

To the little man's left was a figure Seras recognized from surveillance photos. It was a woman, tall with black hair that flowed down to the backs of her knees. She had a pale face with a few freckles on her cheeks. Dressed in a man's evening suit and slinging a long musket over he shoulder, her blue eyes stared coldly through her spectacles.

"Rip van Winkle…Millennium," Seras said.

"Ah, I see you two already are acquainted," the blue little man said in a high pitched, faintly accented, voice. "Seras Victoria is it?"

"Who are you and what are you all up to?" Seras asked, looking with her eyes, but not her head, for an escape route. She didn't know what the blue man or his insect guards could do, but she did know that Rip van Winkle alone was enough to give her a hard time.

"You've already been told, and most likely reported it to your commander," Rip said with a German accent, her Swastika necklace bouncing as she pointed to Ashley. "Hand over the girl and you might live to walk out of here."

"My name is Ramon Salazar, eighth castellan of the structure you saw so fit to force entry into," the little man said, ignoring Rip. "And I suggest you do as my associate says. You're in a bad position Ms. Victoria, a very bad position indeed."

"Ashley," Seras said, swallowing hard. "Be a dear and go find our friends…NOW!" With a hard shove, Seras pushed Ashley back and ran forward, her pistol firing at Salazar. She suspected him to be the most apt to die when shot, and wanted to take someone down with her.

Seras saw Rip van Winkle's musket come down over her shoulder and fire. The ball tore through her chest, causing her aim to go wide and begin hitting the wall above their heads. Salazar was screaming and running backward with his arms above his head. The black robbed creature was casually walking down the steps, while the red had moved to protect Ramon with its body.

Seras felt something rip through her stomach from her back and knew it was Rip's "magic bullet" coming back for another strike. Not at all pleased she was the one was going to confirm that bit if intelligence, she sunk to her knees as the bullet made a third pass, then a fourth, then a fifth.

Her entire body screaming with pain, she fell forward, her spinal column damaged so she couldn't move. As the bullet tore her body to shreds, she decided that next time, she would aim for Rip's face.

As darkness encompassed her senses, she could hear Salazar screaming "Get her, get her!"

**To be continued…**


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter Fourteen.**

Seras awoke, knowing nothing but hunger. Something cold and metallic was holding her arms above her head and her wrists together, and it was annoying. She tugged, unable to gain leverage. Realizing she was sitting down, she used the shackles to pull herself to her feet.

It was cold wherever she was, and she didn't like it. The room was dark with a high ceiling and two large pillars in the middle of the room, blocking her view of what might have been stairs on the other side. On her right was a wall with a caged cell set into it. She could smell something that stank inside the cell, but a far more wonderful smell drew her attention to the other side of the room.

Her eyes had already attuned to the lack of light and she could see the room as though the sun were beaming down on it. The smell was coming from a charred corpse. All the juicy blood was still inside, not quite rotten, but probably getting there.

She didn't care how old the blood was. She was so hungry that any kind of blood would be delicious. Even the blood of a burned helicopter pilot, anything to fill the giant pit in her stomach. She tried walking forward, but the chain held her back. Letting out a small wail, not wanting to deal with being chained up, wanting only to bury her face in the corpse and gulp the blood inside, she yanked on the chain harder.

Yank, yank, yank, she could hear the bolts sliding out and she smiled. She was going to eat soon. It had been so long, she had been so hungry; all of those juicy people who had been with her before, would've tasted so good, would've filled her up to the brim.

The chain broke, letting her get the leverage she needed to break the manacles on her wrists. The steel cut her, but she didn't care as she ran across the room, her bare feet plodding over the cold floor, to the burnt body of the chopper pilot.

She fell on it, ripping the burnt cloth from the charred skin and sinking her teeth onto the fleshiest spot she could find. The blood was dead and thick from coagulation, but fresh enough to sustain her. Burying her face into the man's stomach, letting the blood and whatever other fluids fill her mouth, she swallowed and swallowed, and swallowed, letting the blood fill the gnawing emptiness inside her.

The longer she drank, the more disgusting the blood became. Her sense was coming back to her, much like a mother returning to the house from a walk and finding her child rooting through the garbage. Still, she kept on imbibing the substandard blood, knowing that she needed as much as she could get.

Unable to bear it any longer, she pulled her head up and crawled backward, wiping the blood from her face. Sitting on the floor, disgusted with herself, she realized that she was also naked from the waist up. Covering her chest with her forearm, she stood and took stock of her surroundings, not looking at the body behind her.

She was in some kind of basement prison. The stairs to her left lead up to a sturdy, metal door. She walked up the stairs, feeling stronger, much more so than she remembered feeling all day. Even the blood from the dead pilot had been like manna from heaven.

The door was quite thick and made of steel. Even with her strength, she doubted she would be able to break it down; at least not before any guards came running. Half-naked and unarmed, she had no desire to fight a cadre of hooded men.

Looking down into the prison, she could see what had been smelling up the cell built into the wall. Chained to the wall was something out of a gladiator movie. It was a tall, burly man with a gladiator-style helmet. From where she was she could see that his eyes had been sewn shut and wicked looking steel claws attached to his forearms.

While puzzling over what the thing was supposed to be, she spied a steel lever bolted to the wall next to it. Sighing, wishing she had a shirt, she went back downstairs and looked the room over for anything she might use as a weapon in case the creature suddenly became active.

Finding nothing, she walked carefully up to the bars and examined the monster more closely. It was alive, and moving slightly to keep from falling down, but otherwise seemed dormant. Gently, she pushed on the cell door and nervously watched the creature as the door swung inward.

More and more, it was looking like a complete setup. The body, the lever, the very fact that she was alive and not sitting in a pile at the bottom of an incinerator all pointed to this being someone's idea of a game. It would also explain her being minus one shirt.

"There's probably a camera somewhere," she said quietly to herself. No sooner had she set foot inside the cell when the chained creature's body tensed and its arms broke the chains holding them to the wall.

Raising its arms high and letting out a pig-like grunt, the weapons on its arms extended, perhaps somehow fused to the tendons. Seras backed out of the doorway and over by a pillar as the thing came rushing through, wildly swinging its bladed arms.

At came at her and she leapt nimbly towards where she had been chained up, letting the thing strike a wooden crate, destroying it. Throwing modesty to the wind, she crouched, ready to grab the thing's wrists if it came at her again.

It grunted angrily and retracted its steel claws. Looking up, it began walking around in small circles, unable to see her. As it turned towards the dead body she had eaten blood from, she saw a brown, pulsing growth attached to its back with tentacles.

The parasite had no eyes to see, and she thanked God for small mercies. Wiggling her fingers, she tiptoed her bare feet across the smooth stone, as silent as a cat stalking a mouse. When she got close enough, her hands shot out and snatched at the parasite. With the thing caught in her vice-like grip, she yanked it back hard, tearing the entire thing out of the creature's back like some kind of imbedded tick.

Grunting with rage, the monster staggered forward, trying to claw at its back. As the parasite melted in her hands, the man it had infested fell forward and stopped moving. Tired of being filthy, she wiped her hands on its pants and pulled the lever in its cage. As she suspected, the door at the top of the stairs slid open, letting a little bit of light into the prison cell.

After deciding she couldn't use the gladiator's claw weapons, not without wasting precious time, she went up the stairs with the idea of taking the robe of the first reasonable clean cultist she came across.

With her freedom gained and her hunger fed, her mind turned to Ashley. It was doubtful she had escaped Salazar's guards and Rip van Winkle. Likely she was now deep in the castle and under guard. Where she herself was in the castle, was also unknown and it didn't look like Luis or Leon was going to show up anytime soon either.

"One thing at a time," she said, covering her chest and walking into a carpeted hallway. "Get a weapon and a shirt, then worry about Ashley and saving her."

Part of her hoped she wouldn't run across Luis or Leon before finding something to cover herself with. She imagined Alucard would think her modesty was funny, and he was about the only person she would allow a laugh at her expense in such a situation.

Opting for the long end of the hall, she enjoyed the feeling of the expensive carpet on her bare feet. Shoes was another item on her list, and she wondered if she would be lucky enough to find a cultist sporting a pair of combat boots in her size.

Rounding the corner, the ceiling dropped a little and the hall became more of a series of rooms, perfect for someone to hide in for an ambush. No sooner had she realized it, then two men in black robes, bald, pale, and holding crossbows, stepped out from behind the walls.

Full of blood, the bolts seemed to come at her at the slow speed of punches. She sidestepped one and ducked the other. Running forward while the robed men reloaded their bolts, she grabbed the on the right's crossbow and yanked it from his hands, sending it clattering to the floor.

The other ran, not wanting a close quarters fight armed only with a crossbow. The one she had attack attempted to grab her throat, and she let him, not concerned about having to breath.

Seras reached up between his arms, grabbed the back of his head with one hand, his chin with the other, and snapped the cultist's neck. Dead, he fell to the floor while the other locked his bolt into place.

His second shot was as easy to duck as the first. The bolt struck the stone above her head, nearly hitting her when it ricocheted. The crossbowman ran from Seras as she gave chase. A kick to the back sent him sprawling forward. Sitting down on him while he struggled, Seras snapped his neck as well.

Wasting no time, she searched the pocket of his robes and found a knife. A short, double bladed one, likely used for ritual purposes. Using it, she cut a wide strip of cloth from the robe, which was happy to see was clean and only smelled a little musty. Tying it around her chest, she now felt much more comfortable, although now it looked as though she were wearing a tube top. The hard part, however, was cutting another piece of cloth and using it to wipe the massive amount of blood from her mouth and chest.

She didn't dare put on one of their robes, lest she catch a bullet in the back of her head from Leon if he happened across her and saw her before she saw him. Examining the dead cultist's feet, she saw that he wore sandals, not something she wanted to deal with.

Making her way through the castle's hallways, and having taken the crossbows along with two dozen bolts, she kept her now very acute senses on full alert for any sign of movement.

Feeling as though she were becoming hopelessly lost, she stopped when she walked past a wooden door at an odd position in a long, bland hallway. Putting her ear against the door, she wasted no time opening it after she realized the sounds she was hearing was that of gunshots.

The door led into dark, dank tunnel with running water coming out from the low-set floor and running down into drains. The place smelled faintly of sewage, but she wasn't paying attention to odors much anymore, just the sound of sporadic gunfire.

Getting her feet wet, she bolted down the slippery corridor for about thirty meters, where it hooked right and into a large, square collection pool. Seras jumped down into the knee high water, wincing in pain as her feet took the force of her fall. She slogged over to the ladder on the other side, hoping the sounds of gunfire would continue while she clumsily made her way up the ladder with a crossbow in her hand.

Once on the other side, the shooting was now louder and likely coming from the next room beyond a wooden door to her right. Bursting through the door, she thought she was going to be shot by Leon as he turned his gun on her.

The room they were in looked like another prison cell, with a hole in the ceiling large enough for five men to fit. Leon was shooting down the hall to the left, while Luis stood behind him, glancing to the other side of the room where another door was set on the other end of a pit like the one she had come from.

"Seras!" Luis shouted. "Get over here!"

She started forward, but stopped, seeing movement in the hole above Leon. Something, maybe the size of a person, was moving out of the hole and along the ceiling, towards Leon. It was almost as though the ceiling itself was moving, or the creature moving along had some kind of optic camouflage.

Hoping they weren't in for a Predator reenactment, Seras put a bolt into what she thought was the creature's center. It made a rattling kind of screech and fell from the ceiling next to Leon. As its camouflage faded, Seras saw that it was some kind of insect, perhaps a cricket, only it was the size of Leon if he were to get down on all fours.

Luis used his revolver to stop the thing from moving, while Leon kept firing down the hall. Seras ran over behind Leon and began to load another bolt in the crossbow.

Looking over his shoulder, she saw what might have been six of the creatures scuttling over the corpses of the ones Leon had already killed. "My belt," Leon said. "Grenade."

Setting the crossbow down, she took a grenade from Leon's belt, pulled the pin, and tossed it down the hall into the mass of mutant crickets. It exploded, sending bits of insect raining down on them, ruining Seras's recent cleanup job.

"What the hell are those things?" Seras said, looking at the intact one off to her side. "Now they've got giant crickets?"

"Lets talk about this later," Luis said. "Except, uh, where's Ashley? And your clothes?"

"Kidnapped and stolen," Seras said, as the three of them crossed the pit, which Luis had been waiting on to drain. Through the door on the other side was a much dryer and cleaner series of passageways. The trio stopped in an alcove and sat down. Leon and Luis using the time to rest and reload, while Seras stood guard with her reloaded crossbow.

"Stop looking at me," Seras said to Luis. "You to," to Leon.

"I'm guessing you've got a story for that," Luis said, pointing at her chest.

"Yes, but…"

"How about you tell us the 'what happened to Ashley' story first," Leon said, snapping a fresh clip into his gun.

Sighing, Seras began to relate the tale of her encounter with the castle's master and the Millennium liaison.

**To be continued… **


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter Fifteen.**

After finishing her tale, Luis and Leon related how they had accessed the castle through its sewer system after getting the parasite-suppressing drugs from a secondary laboratory. "I also grabbed this," Luis said, holding up a purple vial of fluid. "Las Plagas sample…kept in the smaller lab to throw off would-be thieves."

"I'm sure they'll be wanting that back," Leon said.

"They will. They might even want it more than the girl. If this fell into someone else's hands, it would be very bad for them," Luis said.

"Do you know where they might have taken her?" Seras asked Luis, thinking he might have some familiarity with the castle's interior.

"Actually, I think I do. They're prepping her for some kind of ritual, so the most obvious place would be the arena, just north of where you got taken out."

"Arena?" Leon said, sounding more annoyed than skeptical.

"Yeah, it's old and worn down, but there's this place with a balcony around a big pit. There's a spot to chain prisoners to the wall for execution. The only two other jail-type places are the one we just came from and the one Seras was locked up in. It's a shame we didn't come by in time to free you."

"A shame, really," Seras said flatly. "I'd also like to know where they put all of my things. I don't really like crossbows."

"I refuse to believe they don't have any firearms in this place," Leon said, moving towards the door. "Maybe we'll find a cache with some boots your size at least."

Luis took his cue to lead the way, although he looked a little uncertain as he picked a passageway. Luis led them down many hallways and through many ornate rooms. Had the place not been a fortress for a religious cult, Seras thought it might make for an excellent museum. Some of the objects hanging on the walls looked priceless, even if they were a little morbid. Seeing a mounted deer's head, she was reminded of Raccoon City's police Chief, Brian Irons, who had kept his office packed with such trophies. He would have preferred stuffed humans, but he had a façade to uphold.

Up a long, winding set of stairs and they were in a low, narrow hallway with ornate holes at about hip level, showing them the hallway Seras had lost Ashley in. Stooping to look through, it was clear that the only down was to go across and come in from the other end, as Seras wasn't sure how she had gotten to the prison from the hallway.

"Is that your blood?" Luis asked, pointing to a giant dark stain on the red rug.

"Yes," Seras said meekly, surprised at how much she had lost.

"You, uh, aren't hungry are you?" Luis asked.

"No, I found something," Seras said, not having mentioned the corpse in the prison. "No one alive, or anyone you'd know."

The pilot's name had been Steve, but that, thankfully, was all she was able to garner from the distant vestige of life in his blood. She was amazed she had even gotten that much, but decided to ponder the spiritual implications later.

Both Leon and Luis seemed uneasy at her statement, but said nothing more about it. Seeing the pool of her own blood through the opening had made her feel like a freak, something she thought she might slowly be getting used to. It was actually quite surprising to her how well they were accepting her for what she was; a fact she now found slightly suspicious.

As a guide, Luis was better than nothing, but still terrible. Twice they went down dead end passages only to be ambushed by black robed cultists carrying medieval weaponry. Some bore modified scythes, altered to reap humans instead of wheat, but most carried spiked flails.

Seras weighed the pros and cons of carrying a spiked ball on a chain, and in the end opted against it. Firearms and knives were what she was trained in; the machete had been a stretch. Unless she found something like a sword or perhaps an axe or a spear, she intended to stick to her crossbow. Besides, in close combat, there was little she couldn't do with her bare hands.

After slaying a man in red robes who was wearing a helmet fashioned from a goat's skull, and had been commanding seven of the black hooded cult members, they found a door that led outside to a stone walkway overlooking a hedge maze.

"Crap," Luis said. "Looks like the door we want is on the other side of this mess."

Leon and Seras looked out over the maze, trying to internalize its layout. The maze actually wasn't as bad as Luis seemed to express. While was partly a maze, it was also a garden, with stone bridges leading up and over pathways to give people traversing the garden an opportunity to view the maze's two ornate fountains.

Thinking the maze had originally been built with pleasure, not death, in mind, Seras took the lead going down a stone set of steps into the garden maze. "I don't think we'll get _that_ lost," she said. "Half an hour, tops."

"Right on," Leon said, following her.

Luis, for once, said nothing as Seras did her best to get to the other side where another stone stairway would lead them up to an ornate set of double doors, which, if their bearings were correct, would take them towards the spot Ashley had been captured.

Growling from somewhere behind the hedges made them stop in their tracks about three minutes after entering the maze. Seras, as inconspicuously as she could, moved slightly away from Leon and Luis, hoping that whatever was making the canine growling would go after her instead of one of them.

The source didn't seem to be moving. Seras held up a hand and signaled for Leon and Luis to keep going forward behind her. Quietly, they moved into an open area, watchful of ambushes and surprise attacks.

Locked up in a tall steel cage were two massive wolves. One was lying down, not looking particularly interested in what was happening, but the other was fully alert to their presence, crouched and baring its teeth.

"Wolves?" Leon said, walking forward cautiously.

"Colmillos," Luis said. Wolves with Plaga parasites. Watch out, if they bust out of that cage…"

As though it had been waiting for Luis to say that, the agitated wolf sprung at the door, knocking it down like a loose sheet of tin. While it ran forward, the other slowly stood up and stretched.

Leon was quicker with his gun than Seras was with her stolen crossbow. Two shots into the creature's head made it fall to the ground, but didn't kill it. Its back began to bubble and rip, as pale wormlike tentacles crawled their way out from the creature's insides.

Leon fired into the mass of alien flesh now crawling from the immobile wolf's back. The tentacles flailed and whipped in a fruitless effort to strike their tormentor. A few more .9mm hollow point shells later, and the parasite began to whither and die, its destruction somehow causing the entire creature to disintegrate into a pile of hair and slop.

All eyes were on the relaxed wolf as it plodded out of the cage to sniff the air. After getting a good look at the three of them, as well as its dead comrade, it hung its head and began making the ulping noise that was the hallmark of a dog about to vomit.

The dogs behavior went from bizarre and mildly amusing to sinister as something long and grey began working its way out of the animal's mouth. Seras, Leon and Luis all pointed their weapons at it, but didn't fire; morbid curiosity having gotten the better of them.

The grey thing wiggled and became progressively wider, forcing the wolf to open its mouth wider and wider, until its jaw snapped and jowls began to tear. The wolf's legs went limp and it fell, yet the thing crawling out of it flopped and squirmed all the harder.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Seras said, as the end that had come out first revealed a tiny circular mouth which opened and mewled.

"Lets just kill the God damned thing," Leon said, opening fire. Luis followed suit, and Seras decided to let off a bolt, just to be sure.

Whatever had been trying to rip its way out of the wolf was obscured as the animal melted upon the parasite's death. Moving over to examine what was left, disgusted sounds of bafflement were all Leon and Seras could muster. "We'd better get going," Luis said.

"You're a researcher for Saddler, right?" Leon said, sounding somewhat hostile.

"_Was_ a researcher for Saddler. You can only take so much of this sort of stuff before enough is enough," Luis said, sensing he was being accused.

"Well then maybe you could tell us what in God's name that was all about? And why do they melt after you kill them?"

Seras kept walking, subconsciously making Luis and Leon do the same while they spoke. She too had been wondering why they melted when the parasite was killed.

"Certain organisms bond on the cellular level with the parasite. When the parasite dies, the cells lose their connectivity and the organism, along with the parasite, melt. Some creatures don't though. We were never able to figure out why," Luis said.

"Is there some point to creating these monsters?" Leon asked.

"I guess Saddler wants soldiers," Luis said. "Big ones, small ones, dogs…"

"Pfft," Leon scoffed. "Sounds like Umbrella."

"I thought so too," Seras said, hoping Leon would stop pressing Luis. "You should've seen the thing in the lake."

"Del Lago," Luis said. "I think it began as just a big salamander…some Plaga make the hosts metabolism shoot through the roof and cause the host to grow."

"Alright," Leon said. "I want to know all about what's up ahead before we run into it."

"Uh, where do I start?" Luis said. "Saddler had a lot of things set up before I was brought in. I wouldn't know where to begin."

Seras had loaded another bolt into her crossbow and led the two men up a bridge overlooking the hedge maze. Looking around, she could see that if they jumped down off the bridge, they would be on a pathway leading directly to a gate, which when bypassed, would take them up the set of stone stairs they wanted to be on.

"Why don't you tell us about the worst thing Saddler has up his sleeve," Leon said. "That way we might not die if and when we run into it."

Seras hopped down from the bridge, wincing as her bare connected with the ground. Luis and Leon stopped their exchange briefly to join her. "Alright, uh…well there's these things we ended up calling Regenerators. They're on the island. Tall, grey, humanoid, red eyes…you can't miss 'em," Luis said.

Seras saw that the gate was padlocked. Using both hands, she grabbed the chain and pulled, causing a link to bend and eventually break. "Regenerators? Let me guess, they…"

"Regenerate, yeah," Luis said. "You can shoot the thing all day and it will heal its wounds almost faster than you can make them. It'll even grow its head back before it falls down…doesn't even really need its head."

"How do you kill it?" Leon asked, losing his antagonistic tone.

"Well, in its body are three to five Plaga. They keep its metabolism and cellular division going. Find a way to get at them, and the thing should die like any other creature made by Plaga infestation."

Seras pushed on the set of double doors leading back into the castle and found them unyielding. "They locked the door," she said, moving over to a window and peering in. "Looks like a bedroom."

Using the butt of his revolver, Luis broke out a few sections of window glass, leaving Seras to snap the wooden skeleton, making a spot to climb through. Seras went in first, stepping lightly onto the glass covered carpet, hoping she didn't cut her feet. She would heal it without an issue, but it still hurt to be cut.

She was taken aback at how lavish the bedroom was. In reality, it was two rooms. The one she was in contained all manner of trinkets and decorations resting atop beautifully worked wooden furniture that must have been worth thousands of euros. The four post bed, complete with canopy, looked extremely comfortable and well-maintained. It reminded Seras of her modified coffin back at the Hellsing Manor, only it was much nicer.

"I think, and don't quote me, that this is a guest bedroom," Luis said.

Moving into the other part of the bedroom, Seras noticed that the bed in that section looked slightly tussled. Hoping against hope, she went over to the large wardrobe and opened it. Hanging up inside was a black collared shirt with a matching vest and mini-skirt.

She took the shirt off the hook and saw that, while a little tight around the chest, the shirt fit. When she put the vest on, she found that it wasn't something someone would wear out on the street. It had many pocket and what felt like Kevlar plates sewn into it. "A bullet-proof vest," she said happily.

"Looks like a pair of boots too," Leon said, turning from the fancy plate set on a cabinet he was inspecting to see what she had found.

While not standard issue combat boots, it was clear they weren't meant with fashion in mind. They fit though, which made Seras even happier.

"What, no skirt?" Luis said.

Her regular Hellsing uniform was a skirt and she had no intention of wearing it when she didn't really have to. Not with Luis there to ogle her legs the entire time. "I'll stick with these old jeans, thanks," she said, looking down at the dirty, bloodstained pair she had been wearing since the mission had begun. Remarkably, there were no giant holes in them yet.

"I wonder who's clothes these are," Seras said, tying up the boots. "I don't think anyone in the cult dresses like this."

"Don't ask me," Luis said. "Maybe it belongs to that Millennium chica that shot you up."

"I don't think Rip van Winkle is big on skirts," Seras said. "Or sleeping in fancy beds, for that matter."

"Can we go?" Leon asked. "We need to catch up with Ashley, not waste time talking about who's staying at Hotel de la Cult."

She was about to say something about him trying to fight monsters in a makeshift tube top with no shoes, but decided to keep the peace. "Right, lets go," she said, jumping up and taking point through the door out of the bedroom.

Feeling better now that she was fully clothed, she still hoped to come across her gun and machete. Her radio and combat knife would be nice too. She didn't care for the ritual dagger she had nicked from the cultist who's robe was now her bra.

In the back of her mind was what Luis had told Leon earlier in the hedge maze, about the Regenerators. Even with a handgun and a machete, she didn't relish the idea of running into one. She needed to find a better weapon, and soon, or she didn't think they would be able to escape Los Illuminados, not without suffering serious losses.

**To be continued…**


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter Sixteen.**

The door leading from the bedroom opened into a long corridor with a red carpet lining the middle and six suits of armor spaced evenly along the wall on either side. A suit near the end had been positioned holding an axe above its head, ready to swing at an invisible enemy.

The axe nearly cleaved Seras's head in two, but a quick decision to roll forward saved her. The force of the axe hitting the floor was enough to cause the suit of armor to fall apart, allowing Leon to put a bullet in the parasite that had been living inside it.

"It was living in the armored suit…" Luis said, bending down to look at the pile of muck while Seras got to her feet. "Non-living host…like a hermit crab or something." The clear fascination in his voice seemed to annoy Leon, who walked past them and kept on down the hall.

Seras wanted to sympathize with Leon. It was people like Luis Sera, people who had allowed themselves to be blinded by scientific curiosity, that had allowed such bloodshed to happen by toying with nature. Still, she found it hard to hate someone for simply being fascinated by monsters.

Luis was also a decent man in comparison to some other scientists she had met. The Birkins had been amoral sociopaths who's ambitions had wiped a city off the map. Compared to them, Luis Sera was a saint.

They now entered what looked to be a dining room for servants, albeit high ranking servants. The table had been set and a meal had taken place, but little had been done to clear it. It was comforting to know the infested humans still needed to sit at a table and eat. Perhaps the myriad of other human weaknesses applied as well.

Luis stopped at the end of the table. "Wait up," he said. "Now I'm a little lost…again." He was looking down a dark corridor that ended in a plain brown door. The other exit was on the other end of an open door gallery near the head of the dining table.

"I'll see what's in that room down there," Seras said. "You two check the other way. We'll meet back here in three minutes."

Luis nodded and after a moment, so did Leon. Seras sensed he wanted a little time away from Luis, but didn't want to waste the time arguing. She also wondered just what had occurred to make Leon so hostile. He hadn't seemed to wear his disdain so openly on his sleeve back at the siege house.

Beyond the door was a storage room filled with food and stockpiled medieval melee weapons. She considered taking one of the spears, but then saw something on the large wooden table in the center of the room, covered by a cloth. Removing the cloth, she took in a breath, much like the kind she used to take when she was very young on Christmas morning, back when her parents had been alive and life had been normal.

Her weapons, and someone else's, were arranged neatly on the table. Her machete, her handgun, her rifle, and radio, plus all of her bullets, were all there and in working order. There was also someone new in the group; a Colt .44 double-action revolver, loaded and with two speed loaders sitting next to it.

Fighting the urge to clap while jumping up and down, she checked to make sure all of the weapons were in working order and that some joker hadn't removed the firing pins or some other rubbish. Seeing that they were, she pocketed the ammunition, her new vest doing its job nicely, and looked around for some kind of leather strap she could use as a makeshift belt. She also found the odd blue medallions she had collected resting in a pile.

"Oh," she said, looking over at a barrel next to a shelf. "I must've been a good girl this year." Sitting on the barrel was not only the black nylon holster she had started with, but a nice leather one for the magnum, complete with a belt that had slots for ammunition. A few even had bullets in them.

As she decked herself out for combat, she didn't think she had ever felt so happy. Other kinds of happiness were bittersweet at best, always coming at a price or simply being complicated. Getting one's weapons back though, Seras thought it was one of the purest and most pleasurable things in the world.

Realizing she was being a bit of a freak about it, she sobered up and took a quick peek out the door on the other end of the storage room. It led outside onto a walkway similar to the one overlooking the maze garden, only this one seemed to overlook a cliff. "Castle on a cliff," Seras said. "I hope it erodes and this place is buried forever."

Truthfully, she liked the place a little. If it weren't for the fact that she would never be sure that all of the horrible things were cleared out, she fancied she could get used to living in it. If she ever left Hellsing, she might find a place similar to it. How she would get the money, she had no idea, plus a vampire living in an old castle was a bit of a stereotype.

Gunfire and shouting brought her out of her errant musings. It was coming from the dining room area, where she had left Luis and Leon. Bolting back down the hall, the recovered rifle being held by her free hand, the other holding her machete, she kicked the door at the end open and ran into the dining room.

The opening to the gallery hadn't been closed, but all of the commotion was coming from inside. The sound of chains being swung and gunfire didn't hide the familiar pig-grunt Seras had heard in the prison cell.

She ran to the opening and saw what had happened. Luis and Leon were trapped inside a three meter by three meter cage that must have dropped down from the ceiling. In with them was another gladiator, along with the bodies of three black robed figures, the fourth trying to hold his intestines in as he slumped in the corner.

Leon was shooting the gladiator as the three of them ran around inside the cage, an ornate dais in the center being the only thing separating them. He might as well have been flicking toothpicks at it for all the good it was doing. If the bullets didn't bounce off the thick steel helmet (which must have been reinforced somehow) they slammed into its thick flesh, sending thin, turf colored blood spattering, but causing the creature no pain.

She waited for it to chase Leon and Luis around to the other side. When it showed it back to her, she drew her pistol, aimed through the bars, and pumped three quick shots into the bulging parasite clinging to its back. Letting a human scream of pain escape its throat, the gladiator sunk to its knees, trying to grab at the pain it was feeling in its back.

As it fell forward and died, Seras shot the surviving black robe in the head. Instead of dying, his head exploded, sending blood and bits of skull spattering over on Leon and Luis.

Protruding from the neck was something she had not seen before. It reminded her of the creatures in the Aliens movies. Spider-like, too many legs, webbing between the legs, plus a foul little opening near the top that served as a mouth. The parasite began to undulate and what looked like a mass of something, visible in its esophagus, began to work its way up.

"Lookout, it's gonna spit!" Luis shouted.

Seras shot the lump it was working up, letting the green, acidic bile run out of the throat before it hit the mouth and dribble over the black robes, causing them to smoke and burn. As the parasite shriveled and died, the host body melted, intestines and all.

The cage, thankfully, had doors held shut by locks. Seras, putting her new boots to good use, kicked one open, letting Luis and Leon out. "Thanks," Leon said. "I thought we were goners."

"Garrador," Luis said. "Nasty pieces of work."

"Who's idea were they?" Leon asked, angrily. "I'd like to meet them."

Luis scratched the back of his head and looked away. "Don't look at me. Most of what I've been up to has been finding out ways to remove the parasite from its host."

That put Leon, and Seras, off a bit. "Huh? Why would you want to know that?" Leon asked.

"Well, at first I thought they might want to remove it for some reason, to transfer it maybe after it had reached a certain stage, but then I realized…the point of the research was to make the parasite harder to remove." Luis sighed. "I've been really, really, stupid."

"A little," Leon said.

Seras opened her mouth to say something, but held it in. Leon didn't sound like he was going to give Luis much more of a hard time, so she let it be. Taking the lead again, Luis walked them down long stone hallways, and finally up a long set of spiraling stairs.

A door opened out onto a balcony that had seen better days. Parts of the banister were missing, and the stairs that had once led downstairs had been destroyed. Old furniture was still resting near faded paintings, apparently none of it had been worth moving before the room had been sloppily converted.

The trio walked to the edge of the rail and looked down on the arena Luis had spoken of earlier. Ashley Graham was standing flat against the southern wall, held upright by three steel bands that ran across her thighs, stomach and chest. Her chin was resting on her chest, and she made no effort to look up.

"Ashley!" Seras shouted, getting the girl's attention.

"Seras!" she shouted back. "You're alive!"

"We'll be right down," Seras said, looking to see if there were an easy way to get down without jumping. "Would you two cover me?" she asked, walking around towards the other end of the arena.

"Sure," Leon said, realizing he had been told, not asked.

"Guys, you made it!" Ashley shouted up at them.

Seras saw Leon hold a finger up to his mouth and nod, urging Ashley to be quiet. It reminded Seras that even though they had found Ashley, they were still very much lost in the woods. Unable to find a way to make the thirty-foot drop the easy way, she sat down on the lip of what might have once been part of the stairs in a futile attempt to shorten the drop.

She could see Ashley, Leon, and Luis watching her, clearly curious as to what was about to happen to her when she hit. Without wanting to out it off any longer, she slid her buttocks forward, falling into open air.

It was over in a few seconds and ended with tremendous pain shooting up through Seras's ankles and into her shins. She fell forward onto her side, grinding her teeth in an effort to keep from crying out.

"Are you alright?" Leon asked.

"Fine," Seras said sharply. Had she been human, she would've had a pair of broken ankles to contend with, but she could feel her blood setting the tendons and small bones while they knit back together.

As she got to her feet, she heard the door they had come in from open, and Leon and Luis's shuffling footsteps. "Luis Sera," a familiar voice said, cool and smooth with only the slightest tinge of malice. "Just the man I wanted to see."

"Saddler!" Luis shouted.

"Seras, get Ashley!" Leon yelled, before opening fire.

She bolted across the arena towards Ashley, torn between getting her to a safe locale and wanting to fight alongside her allies. "Oh my God," Ashley said, looking up at the battle while Seras tore the metal bands restraining her out of the wall.

Having freed Ashley, Seras looked up to the balcony to see Saddler's purple hood moving forward steadily while Leon and Luis ran backwards, firing at Saddler and dodging a long, wicked looking tentacle with a sharp claw on the end of it. As he passed a section of barrister that was missing, he cast a last sidelong glance down at Seras and Ashley as Leon and Luis's bullets tore through his robes.

Seras thought Saddler might have winked at her, which helped her make her decision. Glancing around, she saw a door to her rear. "There, lets go," Seras said, leading Ashley at a run to the door.

"But, Leon and Luis…" Ashley protested.

"They can handle themselves," Seras said, ushering her along faster.

She kicked the door open, finding that it led into a library of all places. Two black robed cultists, drawn by the sound of gunfire, entered the room from a door on the other side. Their hoods had been drawn down, revealing their pale, bald, tattooed heads. Both were unarmed, but it didn't deter them from running across the room to attack.

Seras's pistol dropped them both before they made it past the first bookshelf. Lit only by strategically placed oil lamps, the library was dark, making Ashley somewhat unsure of her footing. Being chained to a wall for however long hadn't helped her ability to walk much either.

"Are you sure they'll be okay?" Ashley said, as they reached the door on the other side of the library. Seras opened it, revealing a storage room filled with dusty furniture.

Seras wanted to reassure Ashley, but having seen Saddler and the tentacle that could only have come from him, plus the way he ignored being shot, she wasn't so sure herself. "They'll run if they can't win," Seras said. "They're both smart, and that Saddler person doesn't seem like he's too wise to fighting."

Ashley shook her head, looking back the way they had come. "No…he's some kind of monster."

"It doesn't matter," Seras said. "They're holding him off so we can escape. Lets not spoil their plans."

Ashley, still looking worried, followed Seras as she head towards another door, past piles of junk and old furniture. Seras hoped she would meet up with them both later, alive and in one piece.

**To be continued…**


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter Seventeen.**

Ashley had to use her sweater to cover her face so as to keep from sneezing. The dark passageway Seras led her down hadn't been used in a long time and were filled with dust that kicked up as they walked; Seras avoided it by not inhaling.

"Why are we stopping?" Ashley asked when Seras stopped walking, placing a hand backward to hold Ashley back.

Ashley couldn't see the dozen or so sets of armor lined up along the wall, it was too dark. Seras could see them, however, and remembered what had happened just before they had rescued Ashley. "The knight armor near the wall," Seras said. "I think some might be infested."

The ones closest were probably clean or else they would have attacked by now. Seras walked up to one and took the long halberd from its weak grip and used it to poke at the heads of the armored suits as she walked down the hallway with Ashley close behind.

When she got near the end, a suit of armor decided it didn't care to be poked, and began to move forward, off the wall and towards Seras, brandishing the sword it had been holding up for display.

She jabbed at the helmet, hoping to dislodge it, but the armor chopped the end of her halberd off with a powerful stroke of its sword. She shoved the broken pole into the area of the armor's neck, and pushed down on her end, hoping to pop the helmet off and expose the fleshy parasite within.

Breaking a clasp, the helmet fell backward and onto the floor, letting something squirm up and out of the neck. The suite of armor was still walking towards her and Ashley, so they moved backward while Seras drew her gun and fired on the parasite.

It died and melted back into the suit, which fell with a crash in the small, dark hall now that its animator was dead. "Lets get out of here," Ashley said. "This keeps getting worse."

As they kept going, Seras worried that the passage might begin to branch off in other directions, into other rooms with God only knew what living inside them. While there were a few antechambers and spots where the passage widened into a room, thankfully it didn't take any twists or turns that would've gotten them lost. With no frame of reference, Seras feared losing her way the most.

One of the chambers had an iron ladder bolted into the wall that led up to a trap door in a lighted passageway. Seras went up it fist to make sure the coast was clear. As Ashley was climbing up, Seras thought she could hear the angry stamping of metal feet on stone coming from the passages bellow.

Before shutting the trap door, she reached down and yanked on the ladder, pulling the topmost half out of the wall. She wasn't able to remove it completely, but guessed that if the armored parasites wanted to climb it, they might have a harder time.

"Do you think we'll be followed?" Ashley asked.

"I'm not sure," Seras said. "I hope not."

She wasn't going to wait to find out, and so urged Ashley down the hall, but never got more than a few feet away from her. Eventually, Seras and Ashley entered what Seras thought was the main castle. Things were cleaner and more expensive looking, plus there was much more light.

When the tang of blood hit Seras's nose, she stopped, grabbed Ashley by the shoulder and sniffed the air more. "Oh no," she said, not meaning to.

"What is it?" Ashley asked, searching Seras's face. "Do you smell something?"

"Come on, this might be bad," Seras said.

Seras followed the smell of blood, and oddly enough what smelled like grease, into a large chamber where the first thing she saw was Leon sitting on the ground propped up against a lever mechanism. The lever looked to control a platform set atop two giant gear-wheels that would transport someone across a deep, spiked pit.

His hair was matted with blood, which also looked to be pooling around where he sat. His head was hanging forward on his chest, and he seemed to be only half conscious.

"Leon!" Seras and Ashley shouted in unison as they ran over to him.

Leon picked his head up slightly, but let it drop back down. "S-Saddler," he said. "He's…some kind of…"

"I saw," Seras said. "How badly are you hurt?"

He took his hand from his thing to reveal a deep gash. Seras could also see a nasty looking cut on his head. "I think I look worse than I am," he said. "Luis…"

"What happened to Luis?" Seras asked.

"He's dead," Leon said. "Saddler killed him and took the sample."

The words struck Seras like a slap to the face, but she buried the feeling. Looking to Ashley, she could see the girl wasn't as used to such news. "D-dead?" Ashley said. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah," Leon said. "I tried to get him, but we were running when Saddler's tentacle stuck him…I tried to drag him along but I got torn up and Luis was dragged back."

Seras looked to the other door, the main one that Leon had apparently used to enter; the blood trail made Seras wonder just how much he had lost. "Where's Saddler now?" she asked.

"I don't know…he didn't seem really interested in me after he got…Luis."

"He was after the sample," Seras said. "His priority now is Ashley."

"Oh," Leon said, trying to reach his pocket. "Luis he did manage to throw me these before Saddler got him." Leon got his hand in his pocket finally and pulled out a large bottle of pills. "The drug."

Seras took it and opened it. "Did he mention the dosage?" she said, handing the bottle to Ashley and undoing Leon's utility belt. On it was a small first aid kit, which she opened and began prepping for use. She hadn't had much training in field dressing wounds, but she thought she knew enough to keep Leon from bleeding to death.

"No," Leon said as Seras began to dress his wound.

"How about two?" Ashley said, popping two of the white capsules.

"Uh, two, sure," Seras said, cleaning the wound on Leon's leg, causing him to wince.

Ashley put the cap back on the bottle, not looking too thrilled about taking strange drugs to kill of freakish parasites living inside her and handed the bottle back to Seras, who took a moment to swallow three pills.

"Can you walk?" Seras asked, looking at Leon's head wound.

"Yeah," Leon said, standing up. "Like I said, I think it just bled a lot."

"What are we going to do now?" Ashley asked. "I mean, Luis said there was a machine somewhere that would remove our parasites…what if we don't know how to run it?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," Seras said.

Leon slowly got to his feet and was looking pale but otherwise fine now that Seras had bandaged him. "You might want to go on ahead. I'll slow you down. I can catch up after I'm rested," Leon said.

"Not happening," Seras said, looking at the bizarre gear-wheel mechanism. Aside from the entrances Leon and Seras had used, there was another hallway down a short set of stairs behind where Leon had been sitting. "We lost one person, I'm not risking another. Lets see what's down those stairs."

They moved down the stairs with Ashley in between at a slow pace. The stairway led to one of the stranger things Seras had seen, aside from the giant gear-wheel. Sitting on a rail was a small trolley that looked to Seras as though someone had combined the best parts of a couch and a railroad.

"Hey, a seat," Leon said. "I could go for that."

The three of them sat down on the trolley, Seras next to Ashley with Leon sitting across. Seras pulled a lever on the side of the trolley which immediately set it into motion. Seras thought she could hear the hum of electricity going through the rail and guessed that some parts of the castle must be modern.

The trolley was taking them into part of the castle they hadn't been before. It was slow going, and Seras suddenly got the idea that she should attempt to radio Integra and make a report. Thankful that whoever had been in charge of her things hadn't removed any vital parts of the radio. She attempted to raise Integra over it.

When it didn't work, she put it back in her pocket, only to have it beep. "Sir Integra," she began, but was stopped by a familiar cackle.

"I'm afraid not Ms. Victoria," said Ramon Salazar over the radio. "It is I, Ramon. There will be no more errant radio transmissions outside of this castle."

"Thanks for the heads up," Seras said flatly.

"I must say Ms. Victoria, I'm surprised to hear your voice. You must have found your stay in our dungeon invigorating."

"I'm tougher than I look," she said. "Van Winkle should've told you that much."

"Ah, yes, the lieutenant made it a point to inform me that you would not stay down from such injuries. She said I should cut off your head and ram a stake through your heart next time."

"You won't get the chance, trust me," Seras said.

Salazar rattled off a high pitched cackle that made Seras wince. "We shall see, we shall see," he said. "As it stands, you might be allowed to live a little longer. I understand the traitor, Luis Seras, has been eliminated by our Lord Saddler and what he stole retrieved?"

"Tell Saddler he'll pay for that," Leon said loudly.

"Oh, Mr. Kennedy is alive as well?" Salazar said thinly. "Is he well?"

"Well enough to be the end of you," Seras said, wondering where this conversation was going. It was clear Salazar had only called to antagonize them. Seras thought he must be feeling quite confident with the score in his favor.

"Ah, I expect arrogance from the American, but not from a nice young English girl such as yourself. Perhaps it's the monster in you?"

Seras smiled. It was the old "you're a monster" bit. It only really bothered her when her friends saw her a monster; her enemies on the other hand, maybe it was preferable.

"I don't think you want to find out," she said. "Goodbye, you're wasting my time."

Salazar laughed and cut off his transmission. "Well, looks like no radio," Leon said.

The trolley slowed to a stop at another small room with an ornate green door leading out. They got off and stopped, letting Leon test his footing. He was looking as though he would live easy enough, but Seras didn't know how good he would be in a fight.

"We've got a problem," Seras said.

"What is it?" Ashley asked.

"This is a disaster waiting to happen," Seras said, seeing Leon look at the floor. "Leon's hurt and we're only going deeper into this castle with the hope we'll go out the back door and off to an island with a dodgy piece of medical equipment that we're not sure how to use."

"It's our only option," Leon said. "We can't call in backup and we're on a clock with those parasites living inside you."

"I know," Seras said. "But we need a better plan if we're going to keep going forward. If we're ambushed by anything more dangerous than a few cultists, we can't guarantee Ashley's safety."

"I'll be fine," Ashley said. "If something happens, I'll get behind you..."

"And if we're surrounded?" Seras said. "I think you two should hide somewhere while I secure a route."

Leon looked up, apparently not liking the idea, but unable to think of something else. "Alright. We'll head forward together until we find someplace to lay low. You get us a way out," Leon said.

"Sounds like a plan," Seras said. Even though she thought this was the best course of action, she still had reservations about leaving her human charges alone. A lesser worry was actually being alone herself. Swallowing her reservations, she led the two humans through the green door.

**To be continued…**


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter Eighteen.**

The hallways were becoming narrower and better decorated. Seras took that to be a sign they were getting closer to where Los Illuminados kept its command center. Her hope was that they had set up some sort of shortcut out of the castle for themselves and that they would be able to sneak Ashley through it.

They came to a three-way fork, where Seras stopped. The hall to her left was dimly lit and made up of unfinished brick. "Let's try that way," she said. "It looks like it leads to another storage room or a pantry."

Eventually it did, but not before leading them to a room with four suits of armor standing with halberds in each corner. No sooner had she noticed them did they then begin to move. "Here we go again," Leon said, shooting the one closest to his left in the face plate, punching through the metal and wounding the parasite within.

Ashley dutifully got behind Seras and Leon while Seras drew the .44 for the first time. Her first bullet destroyed the faceplate of the one to her right; she could hear the parasite's death squeal as the armored suite crumpled to the floor. She fired again at the next one on the right with the same result. Leon's bullets had already felled both on the left.

"Good work," Leon said. "Are you sure you want to split up?"

"Yes," Seras said, quite confident she could have killed all four suits of armor on her own, with here bare hands if need be.

"Alright," Leon said, following her down more corridors with Ashley.

When they came to another storage room filled with barrels and boxes, Seras set to work moving some out of a corner. The barrels were filled with some sort of liquid, which made them quite heavy but Seras moved them easily as Leon and Ashley stood and watched in slight amazement.

"Just sit tight right there," Seras said, pointing to the empty corner. "I'll build these back up around you."

Reluctantly, Leon did as he was told while Ashley seemed to be a little relieved she was going to be somewhat out of danger for a moment. "Does your radio work, Leon?" Seras asked.

"Yeah, but Salazar…"

"Has the line jacked, yes. We can't transmit outside, but what about in?"

Leon pulled out his radio and adjusted an knob. "Start at 142.35. Are you familiar with the alpha pattern?"

Seras thought a moment. Leon was referring to the order in which people would change radio frequencies when the lines weren't all that secure. "Yes," she said. "We'll keep our transmissions to emergencies only. If it looks like I'm about to buy it, I'll call. I'll be back in two hours as well, so if I'm much longer than that, radio me."

"We'll radio if we're discovered," Leon said. "Let's see if this even works…testing."

Seras's radio duplicated Leon's voice. "Looks like it works," she said. "Alright, time to hide."

Leon sat stiffly against the wall while Ashley plopped her sweatshirt onto the floor for a cushion and sat on it. Seras made short but careful work of concealing them, and stacked the extra barrels near some boxes. She also took a gray tarp and threw it over the barrels hoping to cover the two humans completely. "Take care," she said. "Remember, two hours."

"Good luck," Ashley said, he voice muffled by the makeshift shelter.

Seras left the room and backtracked to where the corridor had initially split. She now went down what would have been the straight option and after a minute saw she was right to have hidden Ashley and Leon.

The hallway was much higher than the others with large windows on the right hand side that flooded the hall with moonlight. It had stopped raining, but the open windows were blowing in chilly air, causing large banners near the windows that bore the cult's insignia to flap.

At the end of the hall was a cadre of heavily armed cultists. Eight figures in ornate purple robes, two in the center with metal skull helmets carrying scythes; behind them were four men with wooden shields and maces. To round it off were two more men carrying crossbows, one on each end of the formation.

With speed and precision, she used the rifle to shoot one of the men with a crossbow before he could fire off a shot. His head exploded and he dropped the bow. The second crossbowman's shot went high and clattered off the stone wall above her. She ejected the shell, took aim and blew off the second crossbowman's head.

Taking the lead, the two men with metal helmets came forward, backed up and flanked by the men with shields. She chambered another rifle round, but set the weapon down, opting instead for her pistol. She didn't want to waste rifle bullets trying to punch through the shields or the helmets.

She ran forward to meet them, but snatched at one of the fluttering banners as she went, unhinging it. She dragged it as she ran and swung it up at the six men at the last second, draping them in the heavy cloth. As they became tangled and shouted Spanish curses, Seras shot at their legs hoping to cripple them for a coupe de grace with her machete.

The two carrying the scythes went to the floor, their knees destroyed and unable to walk. The other four dropped their shields as the banner had become entangled on the metal spines jutting out of the metal bands holding them together.

She fired at one man with a mace and ducked as another took a swing at her. The one she hit went down, splattering the two nearby with brains, parasite, and blood. She fired again at the one who had attacked her, clipping him in the shoulder.

The other two were on the move, and she decided to try to shoot them both in the head and move forward instead of retreat. She felled them both easily, but the decision cost her.

Everything suddenly went white and she fancied she could feel her eyeballs being knocked out of her skull from a crushing blow to the back of her skull. She staggered forward, tripping over the dead cultists and landed on her face. Rolling onto her back, her senses returned to her.

The man who had caught her in the back of the head with a mace was poised for another downward strike into her stomach. Still too stunned to do much, she took the blow just under her ribs, causing the air in her lungs to blow out all at once.

Even though she didn't need to breath, having the air knocked from her still hurt. She curled up in pain, ready to take a severe beating from the cultists who had gotten her blindside.

Something happened. Her body uncurled and rolled away in time to avoid having her hip crushed. The mace struck the stone floor, cracking it. Once on her feet, her arm reached for her machete, ignoring all pain and the urge to cradle the back of her wounded skull.

The next few moments were a blur. Her body, semi-independent of her own will, hacked her attacker to death and then turned on the crippled men who are trying to crawl forward. Far from her typical berserker rage, where she didn't remember any of it, this time she saw, felt and heard everything and was even able to regain control once her enemies had melted.

"Ow," she said, putting her machete back after wiping on a cultist's robe. She could feel the bones in the back of her head sliding back into place as the pain dulled and throbbed. Once she had recovered her rifle, she vowed to make every attempt to stay out of close combat. The pilot she had found and eaten had been a gift. Now, the only remotely palatable humans were Leon and Ashley, and they were simply off limits.

Looking down at the putrid goo the cultist's had melted into, she was even more sure that their blood would provide little or no sustenance. Once her body had stopped healing, she concentrated. She didn't feel hungry, but she knew that a few more costly battles would dull her senses. If she ran up against Rip van Winkle again in such a state, she might not survive the encounter.

Thinking of the Millennium lieutenant, she wondered if she was edible. Alucard had mentioned having a desire to devour one or more Millennium members, so although it was a long shot, and not really a pleasant idea, Seras mentally marked lieutenant van Winkle as prey and opened the door the cultist's had been guarding.

**To be continued…**


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter Nineteen.**

Her jaw dropped as soon as she opened the door. The room was easily the size of a cathedral even without counting the massive pit beneath the ruined floor that led to a drawbridge on the left hand side.

The room wasn't what impressed her. The giant brown object hanging from the ceiling was what made her stop. It was eighty meters long if it was a centimeter and tapered to a point just five meters from the floor. Part of her wanted to laugh; it looked like someone had taken a giant shit through the top of the tower and it had become stuck there.

Her amusement faded when something within it, about the size of a human, began to writhe and force its way out. Antennae and four black eyes set above a mandible told Seras the giant object was some kind of giant egg sack or cocoon. From the giant holes in the floor came the hum of insect wings followed by dozen or so mutant crickets.

"Oh bloody hell," Seras said, drawing both her magnum and her pistol, now glad she had reloaded before entering the room.

She held both guns out in front of her and fired at two crickets at a time. Both lost large chunks of their heads and fell, unable to fly. She wasted no time moving down the line, aiming with her sixth sense instead of her eyes. She'd dropped six before the ones on her right landed and were joined by four newborns from above. Three rounds from the magnum killed the three closets to her and she shoved the empty gun back in its holster.

One of the remaining five loped forward more like an ape than a cricket, but Seras dealt it a vicious kick to its face before it could leap to attack. Her boot crushed its skull and it nearly fell back into the pit, but instead began to melt.

The other four charged her at once. They had her flanked and backing up would have required jumping into the pit. Instead, she ran towards them and jumped, her powerful legs propelling her through the air over the cricket's heads.

Twisting in the air, she landed hard on her feet facing the monster's backs and began firing with her pistol, hoping to hit something vital in their insect bodies. The bullets punched through the exoskeleton, letting out a grey, brown, fluid.

Squealing, they turned, exposing their faces which Seras promptly put bullets into. With the cricket's dead, she reloaded both her pistol and her .44, then made her way across the room to the lever which she assumed would drop the drawbridge.

She pulled the lever and the bridge came down with a slam. To cross it, she would have to walk back under the giant egg sack. As she did, she could see a multitude of shapes crawling around within, some trying to escape while others were still developing or dead, having been eaten by their siblings.

Drawing the magnum, she looked to where the sack had been attached to the ceiling. About a dozen fleshy threads held it in place, prompting her to fire a test shot. The bullet snapped the thread, making Seras think the tendon-like structures had the consistency of cold rubber.

She decided to go for broke and shoot all of the egg sack's anchors. It took fourteen shots, but finally the last one snapped from the thing's enormous weight and came down, flopping off the floor and into one of the deep, dark pits.

"Lucky it didn't break the floor," she said, trying to see down into the pit. It was too deep and dark for even her eyes to penetrate, and she hoped she had killed the entire race by dropping the egg sack.

Across the bridge and through a large set of double doors was a corridor that led outside to a wooden bridge. The bridge led over a chasm to a small tower. Off to her right was the rest of the castle, including a spot on the other side that looked like it was supposed to connect to the squat tower in front of her, but didn't.

Thinking their must be a mechanism inside the short tower that would extend a bridge, she began walking across it. Her radio beeped and she answered it. "Leon?" she said.

"I'm afraid not," Salazar said. "He's not with you?"

"What do you want?" Seras asked, kicking herself for letting on they had separated.

"The Novistadors are in a bit of an uproar. I take it you destroyed their birthing chamber?"

"You should thank me," Seras said. "An exterminator would've charged you a fortune to clear out that infestation."

"Oh, you're funny and…ah, now I can see you. Look to your right, dear."

She scanned the castle's battlements and soon spotted the top of Salazar's head as well as the three catapults stationed along the wall directed at the bridge she was on. Salazar found something to stand on and waved at her. She waved back politely, wondering if she might shoot him with the rifle before he ducked.

"Ah, I see you've hidden your friends away somewhere. We'll begin searching for them then. If you were thinking of rotating that bridge, think again. We've jammed the gears."

"Then I'll un-jam it. And you can tell anyone who's in there that if they get in my way, they're dead."

Salazar chuckled. "Tell them yourself."

The catapults fired in unison, sending flaming projectiles in her direction. She ran, knowing they must already have the bridge's range. She made it to the other side just as the fiery lumps struck, sending burning material everywhere.

Her back was warmer than before, but she was otherwise unharmed. The burning objects hurled at the bridge didn't seem to be catch, nor had it caused any structural damage that she could see.

"Good thing," Seras said, thinking she would make sure she could rotate the bridge and then go get Ashley and Leon before activating it.

She made her way up a set of stone stairs on the other side of the tower, safe from anymore catapult fire. At the top of the stairs was a door leading into the tower. Holding her pistol in a teacup grip, she kicked the door open and entered with the intent of shooting anything that moved.

The center of the tower was nothing but gears surrounded by brick walkway. A ladder leading both to an upper and a lower floor was to her right, but what caught her eye was the two black robed cultists with crossbows on the other end of the walk who fired through the mess of gears.

One arrow nearly went through her eye, but she turned her head in time to avoid it. Her own shots found their marks, felling the two men. She heard something wet pop and could see movement from where one had fallen, the parasite in his head and chest cavity had emerged with the head removed. She could hear it skitter around the walkway towards her, so she raised her gun and shot it when it came into view.

She couldn't hear anything else in the tower, so she looked to see what had jammed the gears. Counting three blocks of wood stuck between the steel teeth of the machines working parts, Seras sighed, tucked her gun into its holster and began climbing around in the gears.

It took her longer than was comfortable and she nearly fell twice, but soon she was back on the second floor with the gears free to turn. She had seen a lever on the top level which she assumed would work the mechanism once it was pulled. First, she had to get back to Ashley and Leon before Salazar's men found them.

**To be continued…**


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter Twenty.**

Her radio beeped halfway back to the spot she had hidden Ashley and Leon. "Seras," she said, answering. 

"They found us," Leon said over the radio. "A few minutes ago…I think I got 'em, but they're still…"

His transmission was cut off abruptly, leaving nothing but static in Seras's ears. "Leon," she said. "Leon!" 

Seras stuffed the radio back into her pocket and swore. She wanted to slap herself for having let this happen. "I knew it, I knew it, I knew it," she repeated as she ran down the halls, heedless of what might be in front of her. 

When she reached the room she had last seen Leon and Ashley, there were three piles of slop and robes on the floor with barrels scattered about the room, the makeshift hiding place destroyed. 

There was a door on the far end of the room hanging ajar, unlike how Seras remembered leaving it. Making her way through, expecting to find Leon's corpse she found instead more black robes filled with muck. What worried her was the increasing amount of blood she was seeing, not the dirty blood of an infested human either.

She followed the signs of battle into a room with a wooden table that had been overturned along with multiple items of furniture. Pinned to the table by a crossbow bolt was a note written in passable English. 

We have girl. Man is alive and with us. Come to castle center if dare. Running out is the time. the note read. 

One of Salazar's cronies must have written the actual note. His English was better than that by far. The question now was how to get to the castle's center. Leon and Ashley's captors must have used some other route aside from the one she had intended to use but she had no time to try and find it. She decided to head back to the tower and rotate the bridge rather than waste time tracking Ashley and Leon's abductors. 

More cautious but no less fast, she returned to the tower. Luckily, those manning the catapults hadn't expected her back and weren't able to fire until she had crossed and was safe inside the tower. Making her way to the top floor, she continued to curse herself for losing Ashley and Leon. The note had claimed both were alive, but she had no reason to believe it. 

Seras reached the lever and pulled it, causing the entire tower to come alive as the gears in the center all began to turn at once. Over the sound, she could hear the grinding of stone outside as the bridge swiveled around to connect to the other end of the castle.

As she climbed down the ladder towards the bottom floor to use the door on the castle's west side, she heard the door open and footsteps come rushing in. She slid down the ladder and landed with a thud. Turning, she saw that five purple robed men with flails and shields had entered the room, leaving the door open behind them. 

Seeing them set her off. With a howl of rage, she drew the magnum and fired, her anger steadying her aim instead of sabotaging it. The bullets blew through the wooded shields taking large chunks of the cultist's heads off. Two sprouted thick, tubular parasites with began attempting to cough something up. Seras's other hand found her pistol and killed them with the same precision she had first attacked with. 

"Bloody bastards," she said, reloading both weapons. If there were anymore outside wanting to come in, she had every intention of dealing with them harshly. 

She counted eight on the other end of the bridge. One of their number was wearing a goat skull on his head, complete with curled horns. The goat skulled man was carrying something as he walked between the others who made way for him. Her sharp eyes saw him kneel and bring something up into his shoulder. By the time the words "rocket launcher" ran through her mind, he had fired. 

She jumped forward and down, her breasts taking the brunt of her body's force as she struck the ground and slid forward. The rocket passed over her head, making her feel the heat from its tail as it entered the tower and exploded. She picked her head up and saw the seven others, all carrying flails, running towards her. 

Ignoring her discomfort, she pushed herself up into her knees and aimed both handguns at the seven cultists. A few of the magnum's shots didn't strike skull, but the gaping chest wounds slowed them down enough for the pistol to be an easy shot. 

Seeing no more cultists aside from the man with the goat skull ornament on his mask, she holstered both guns with intent of reloading them after she was finished. Pulling out her machete, she pointed it at the cadre's leader as she walked towards him. "You, Goat Head. What's the big idea trying to shoot me with a rocket?"

The leader walked forward, swaying as though ready to evade an attack. With a yell, Seras ran at him and swung at his head. He ducked. The goat ornament threw off Seras's aim and her machete only snatched off the hood he was wearing. 

Unperturbed, the hoodless man, bald with blue tattoos over his pale skull, tackled Seras and knocked her down. She felt his hands wrap around her throat and squeeze with preternatural force. 

Without dropping her machete, she put her hands on his wrists and feigned a struggle. She didn't need to breathe, so his efforts to strangle her were futile. She used the spare moments to decide how best to dispatch him without becoming filthy in the process. 

She dropped the machete and used her far greater strength to pry his arms off her. Rolling over on top of him, she got to her knees, straddling him and quickly stood up, pulling the cultists reluctantly up with her. Shoving him to the edge of the bridge, she grabbed the fabric of his robe near his feet and tipped him into the ravine. "Goodbye," she said, waving as he fell. "Wanker."

The door leading back into the castle was large and made from oak. Before going in, she reloaded her weapons and checked to see how much ammo she had left overall. She thought it was enough, but she had to start going easy on it again. With the magnum ready to draw, she kept the machete out with the idea of using it before the gun. 

The door hadn't been locked or barred, so she opened it. The room inside was some sort of reception room. A long red carpet led between two bells on stands, up a set of stairs, and to the door on the other side. Supported by Doric pillars, the room had a Greek feel made Roman by the two creatures Luis had dubbed garradors standing by the far door. 

The claw weapons on their wrists extended and they both made pig-like grunts as they rushed across the room towards Seras. She could see their eyes had been shown shut through the slits in their helmets, which gave her an idea. Drawing her pistol, she fired two shots, one for each bell. 

The loud, crisp, ringing made both monsters peel off from attacking her and demolish both bells separately. Focusing on speed more so than stealth, she ran between them and viciously slashed the parasite on the back of the garrador to her right. She didn't wait for it to die and instead kept with her momentum to hack at the other one. 

The second fell to its knees, flailing at its wounded back. Seras stabbed the machete into it and gave it a hard twist. The parasite bubbled and melted, while the host body fell forward into the wreckage of the ruined bell stand. 

She brushed an errant lock of hair from her face and sighed. She wondered why they hadn't simply locked the door on her and guessed that it was because they didn't want to stop her, merely slow her down and let the parasite within her take control. Incapacitating her might speed the process or at least make it easier. 

Thinking there was no time to waste on such musing, she hurried to the other end of the room and went through the door, again with her machete ready to swing. She stopped suddenly, surprised to see Salazar sitting on a fancy chair, almost like a throne, on the other side of the room.

Ashley was to his right flanked by the tall creatures in red and black robes. They were both holding spears beneath the girl's throat as she sat uncomfortably on her knees. Thankfully, Rip van Winkle was nowhere to be seen.

"Seras," Ashley shouted upon seeing her, making the two henchmen touch her neck with their spears.

"You looked surprised Ms. Victoria," Salazar said, ignoring Ashley. "You expected I would be waiting deeper in the castle?"

She walked forward, knowing they wouldn't kill Ashley. "How did you get here so fast?" she asked, not only wanting to stall but curious as well.

"Please, Ms. Victoria, this is my castle. I know all of its secrets. Tell me, how is the Plaga within you faring? I'm curious as to its effects on 'real' vampire as the lieutenant seems fond of calling you," Salazar said. 

"You know, I think lieutenant van Winkle might have killed the bloody thing when she shot me to pieces," Seras said innocently. "What a shame." She was close enough to attack Salazar if she was quick, but his two henchmen would be able to counter attack and possible take her out. It was them she had to worry about in the end, and with two of them present, one could run off with Ashley while the other fought with her. 

"Don't be coy, Ms. Victoria," Salazar said, free of his usual evil high spirit. "I can feel it within you, growing despite those drugs Sera must have given you."

"I'm not afraid to cut it out if it comes to that," Seras said, still inching forward. 

Salazar smiled. His pallid skin and white hair made Seras wondered how old he was or if he had some kind of disease. Perhaps the parasite inside him was causing it. "Sounds painful," he said. "Don't come any closer. Even if you are soon to be one of us, we will still kill you if need be."

She kept moving, deciding that they were going to carry Ashley off whether she attacked Salazar or not. "I'd like to see you…"

Salazar slapped the arm rest on the throne, making the end flip downward. Seras was suddenly falling, the apparent victim of a trap door. She had time to lament how stupid her current situation was and hear Ashley scream before she felt something cold and sharp rip through her back and out through her stomach while something similar happened to her right leg.

Her fall came to an abrupt end on top of a hard pile of dirt. Moaning in pain, she picked her head up to see just what had happened. The trap door closed above her, cloaking everything in darkness. She could see that she had fallen into a mound of spears, one having gone through her stomach and one through her leg. 

The sharp metal poles she had been impaled on were a good three meters long and with her leg held in place, she couldn't get the leverage to raise herself up off the spike, nor could she pull it out of the ground. She could feel the wound trying to heal around the metal, but nothing was closing.

Her body wracked with pain, she stopped squirming and tried to think. It was likely that someone would be along soon to put an end to her. She had to escape but was at a loss as to how. "Damn it," she said, tasting her own blood in her mouth. "What a stupid trap."

She could hear running water and what was worse, footsteps splashing along towards her. 

**To be continued…**


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter Twenty-One.**

She drew her magnum and let her head roll back to see who was approaching. The pit she had fallen into was small and rotund with the floor being made of dirt. She aimed the gun at the hooded figure that had walked around towards her head and began squeezing the trigger.

"Easy, stranger," the man said loudly with a deep, rough voice. "In a bit of a spot, I see."

"Who are you?" she asked, seeing that his eyes held the same faint glow the other Las Plagas victims sported. "You're one of them."

"Used to be," he said gruffly. "Had enough of it." He walked closer as Seras lowered the magnum more from the pain shooting though her body than actual trust. He was wearing a large black trench coat with the lower half of his face covered by a purple scarf. As he walked, Seras could hear the jingle of metal.

"Well if you're not one of them, could you help me?" she asked. "I'm in a lot of pain."

"It looks bad," he said, now only half a meter away. "I'm afraid you haven't got long."

She coughed, sending blood out of her mouth. "Look, I'm not human, alright? I'll live, but not if one of Salazar's cronies comes down here and lops off my head. Please, help me."

"Not human eh?" he said, closely inspecting her body. "Seems to be a lot of that going around these days."

"Look, help me or don't help me, but this really hurts, so if you're going to help the get on with it."

"Alright, alright," he said with no real sense of urgency in his voice. "Everybody gets one, I guess." He opened his coat, revealing a plethora of tools, weapons and ammunition. From somewhere in his coat, he retrieved a hand saw with fine teeth for cutting metal. "Don't mind the shavings."

He began to saw the spike through her stomach while he hummed a rough tune. As she wondered what he meant by "Everybody gets one" he sawed quickly through the spike, throwing it off to the side. She tried to sit up, but he put his hand gently on her breast and held her down. "Hang on, I'll get your leg," he said.

She considered shooting him in the hip, but decided to let him get away with the grope. If he got her out of the mess she was in, she supposed it could be forgiven. Once the spike through her leg was cut, he put the saw down and cradled her lower back and thigh. With a quick movement, he lifted her up off the metal, making her yelp.

"Thanks," she said once he set her down in her back on the soft, damp, sand. Her blood went to work healing the wounds, the worst of which being her stomach.

"Don't mention it," he said, standing with a slight slouch. "Who are you supposed to be?"

"Me? Uh…my name is Seras," she said, feeling better about speaking now that her stomach was on its way to getting back together. "I'm supposed to rescue Ashley Graham, the U.S. President's daughter."

He looked up at the hole she had fallen through. "Ain't going too well, is it?"

"No, not really," she said, thinking this conversation was the absolute last thing she had expected. "The American they sent, Leon, he's captured too. And a researcher we met up with, Luis, is dead."

The man grunted. "Small wonder, only sending two people…even if you are a, a, whatever it is you are."

"A vampire," Seras said, somehow knowing it wouldn't bother her new acquaintance to know what she was. "I've been a vampire for almost ten years."

"Vampire, eh?" he said. "Guess I've heard everything now. So how are you planning to accomplish your mission exactly?"

She sat up and looked around, seeing a steel ladder leading up to what looked like a sewer tunnel. "Uh…well, I guess I should go up that ladder before someone comes to kill me. After that I guess I'll look for Ashley or Leon again. I should've just shot Salazar now that I think of it, but I was low on bullets and…"

"Ah ha!" he said. "There's your trouble; you're not properly equipped. I might be able to help you with that."

Thinking of equipment, she took the rifle off her back; the pain of it jamming into her back had been overridden by her impalement, but she could feel it a little now. The scope had been knocked off-center, but she didn't really need it anyway. "I've got this .308 rifle, a .44 magnum, and a 9mm pistol. I'm low on ammo for all of them."

"I got all that in spades," he said. "But I'll tell ya, I got some other things you might be interested in. For a price of course."

Seras smiled. Something about the man had struck her as a salesman from the moment she saw him pull out the saw. She removed the rifle's scope and checked to see if it was undamaged. It was. "I've got this to trade," she said.

"Hmm…" the man said, not sounding so enthused anymore. "Maybe not then."

"Oh wait," she said, pulling out the ten blue medallions she had collected back at the farm near Pueblo. "Are these worth anything?"

The man's glowing eyes widened. "Ah…yes, yes they are," he said. "Now we're in business."

The man opened his cloak and removed two boxes of ammunition for each gun type Seras had, plus two speed loaders and clips for her magnum and pistol. "There," the man said. "How's that for a trade?"

Seras handed him the medallions which he pocketed discretely. "Works for me," she said, opening the boxes of bullets and filling the clips and speed loaders. The extra bullets she took out of the boxes and put in separate pockets on her vest, which was now sporting an unsightly hole near the stomach area.

"Now all I have to do is find a way out of here and back to where they're going to take Ashley," Seras said, looking at the steel ladder leading up to the sewer tunnel.

The man sighed softly. "Alright," he said. "Because you're such a friendly customer, I'll throw this in for fr…for fre…for free." He seemed to have trouble pronouncing the word free, although the rest of his English had been perfect. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a rolled up piece of parchment.

"What's this?" Seras asked, taking it.

"It's a map of the castle. All up to date and everything. That tower near the back, the one by the water, that's where they'd be moving the girl to. I know there's boats down by the water they use to go to a nearby island owned by that Saddler fellow."

"Thank you," Seras said, glad to finally have some idea of where she was going. "You've been very helpful. I, uh, don't suppose you'd like to accompany me?" The added backup would be nice, she thought.

The man laughed. "No thanks. If you happen across something valuable, I might turn up, but otherwise I'm afraid we're to part company."

Seras nodded and smiled politely, sticking out her hand. "Well it was good meeting you," she said as he took her hand and shook it. "Bye."

She went to the ladder and climbed it after picking up her machete; deciding that the situation with the strange merchant had been too bizarre to allow a parting that wasn't at least a little awkward. Once up inside the tunnel, she took a look back to see if he might be following somehow. "Odd little man," she said as her radio beeped. She pushed the button on it and held it to her head, guessing it was likely Salazar but hoping it was somehow Leon. "This is Seras," she said.

"Ah, Ms Victoria. You are able to reach your radio I see, excellent. Are you enjoying your impalement?" Salazar said.

She resisted the urge to laugh. "I've had worse actually," she said. "Next time I'm just going to blow your head off your shoulders and be done with it."

There was a long pause from Salazar before he replied. "What? You're free? Damn it!"

She laughed, he was losing his composure finally. "I'm a true vampire. You can't just impale and forget me, you know."

"I'll send someone down to take care of you," Salazar said, audibly holding back his anger. "My right hand will make sure to remove your head and your heart."

The transmission cut off and Seras put the radio away. She drew the magnum and cocked the hammer, ready with her machete in her other hand. By right hand she knew he meant one of the bizarre creatures that usually flanked him. She had no idea what their powers were, but they looked mean.

The sewer tunnel was made of stone, but had modern trappings like steel doors and electric lighting. Arrows painted on the wall pointed towards locations for sewer workers; she wondered which one would lead her out and consulted the map the merchant had given her.

After a moment of study, she determined the room to her right was the one with the service elevator she wanted. She entered it, seeing that the room was some kind of power relay area as well as a break room. A table with foam coffee cups and clipboards sat near the elevator which she attempted to summon with a button.

Instead of humming to life, a button reading "Insufficient Power" in Spanish lit up. "Damn it," she said, looking at the map again and seeing the room labeled "Breaker Room" down the tunnel from the room she was in.

She headed towards it, knowing Salazar's monster would use the delay to find her. She only hoped the battle didn't cost her too much in the way of blood. Being impaled had been a bad enough price. Anymore damage like that and she would be apt to eat Leon or Ashley if and when she found them.

**To be continued…**


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter Twenty-Two

**Chapter Twenty-Two.**

She heard something heavy drop behind her onto the stone just as she passed a tank of liquid nitrogen strapped to the wall. Turning just in time, she ducked something large and black rushing at her.

The creature skidded to a stop after nearly clothes-lining her. Standing upright and turning slowly around, she got her first good look at one of Salazar's body guards. It was tall, nearly eight feet from its clawed feet to domed, insectoid head and aside from the long, whip-like tail that swished behind it, the thing was humanoid for the most part. It reminded her of the creatures she had seen in the Alien movies.

She shot it in the face and watched her powerful .44 bullet bounce off its exoskeleton. "Oh," she managed to say before it swung at her with its powerful clawed hand.

Jumping backward, she fired again into its face, hoping there was some fleshy bit her bullet would penetrate. Even its eyelids seemed to be thick and bulletproof. If her magnum wasn't punching through its armor, she decided nothing she had on her was going to do the job.

It rushed her again but her reflexes were still on a level far above anything human. She ducked, catching the creature in the waist with her shoulder and stood up hard and fast, throwing its bulk up and over behind her back.

She took a few steps forward and turned, watching the thing slowly sit up and get to its feet. She knew it could be much faster if it wanted, and wondered if it might be feeling a little cocky.

The rifle left her back and met the floor. She didn't want it getting in the way if she ended up having to wrestle the monster and pull its limbs off one by one. The feeling of déjà vu came over her; there was a seemingly unbeatable monster in front of her standing near a tank of compressed gas. She was standing in a sewer tunnel with a gun.

"Alright," she said to herself. "Here we go again." Letting the monster come at her, she fired at the nitrogen tank as it walked past it. The tank ruptured, spraying liquid nitrogen all over the creature causing it severe discomfort. Even Seras was forced to back up.

Squealing, the monster clawed at its head in an effort to wipe the offending substance off as it caused the exoskeleton to rapidly go into a deep freeze. Her next shot struck its frozen skull, shattering the black exoskeleton and exposing the mass of flesh within.

The monster let out a high-pitched roar, baring its bizarre mouthparts at Seras. She took aim at what looked like its exposed brain and fired, blowing the soft organ to mush and making the creature collapse.

Reloading the magnum, she looked herself over and saw no injuries. "Bully for me," she said, pleased to not be missing any body parts. With the feeling there should be more of a ceremony to this particular victory, she went down to the breaker room, found the main switch and flipped it. A pack of lights turned from red to green and she headed back to the first room with the elevator and pushed the button.

The elevator came down and she got on, half expecting the dead creature to get up and try to kill her again. She had seen its brain take a .44 round and in her experience, once a monster's brain took a hit, that was the end of it.

The elevator took her down instead of up, prompting her to consult her map. If it was correct, she was going in the right direction but it looked as though she would have to go through some kind of mine or excavation site before returning to the surface.

"I should ask Sir Integra for a raise if I survive this," she said. "I suppose I should also ask to be paid in the first place."

A man in a purple robe sat on a throne in an ultra-modern room filled with an orange light. In front of him stood a tall woman in a black suit carrying a musket over her shoulder. A necklace with the Nazi swastika adorned her neck and her spectacles had sunk low on her nose.

"Salazar is not taking this seriously," Saddler said, adjusting his grip on the long staff he carried, making the small tentacles on it flail. "He should have taken your advice when dealing with Hellsing's agent."

"Would you like me to go and do the job right?" Rip van Winkle said in her thick German accent. "If I surprise her, we should be in good shape. However, toying with her any longer won't be wise. She's a child of The No-Life King himself. She has potential that far surpasses anything we could throw at her."

Saddler laughed with only the slightest hint that he was irritated. "While I agree for the most part, I fear you underestimate the power of Las Plagas. Soon the parasite within her will mature and I will have control over her, despite the pills that traitor Sera gave her. Still, she is dangerous to us in the meantime and should be destroyed as a precaution."

"So the parasite is your failsafe?" Rip said, pushing her glasses back up on her nose.

Saddler drummed his fingers on the armrest of his throne. Rare was it that he became indecisive about small matters. It should've been a simple decision: kill the British vampire or let her live long enough to take control of her. The problem was the damage she was causing to the operation while she roamed free. There was also the question how effective his control over her would be considering she was what Rip kept referring to as a True Vampire. He wasn't about to question Las Plagas' power in front of a subordinate though.

"No. In the unlikely event that you fail and she works up the nerve to rip the gift from her own body, I will kill her myself. That is my failsafe," Saddler said.

Rip bowed her head, doing a passable job of hiding the fact that she wasn't convinced. "I'll go then," she said. "I'll do the job right this time."

"See that you do," Saddler said.

Rip left the room cursing the fact that she had been selected to be Los Illuminados liaison for Millennium. Her mission had started out relatively simple: find out how Las Plagas affected vampires created by the FREAK chip and set up a relationship with Los Illuminados; the idea being that the two organizations would have similar short term goals.

The thought made her spit on the floor in disgust once she was out of Saddler's sight. She hated Los Illuminados. Half the reason she hadn't pressed harder for Seras's destruction had been because she wanted to see the organization suffer and die. Seras was doing a passable job of it too, but she was far too concerned with the lives of the humans. If she would forget them and simply kill who she needed to kill, Rip thought life would be much better for everyone.

If Seras didn't end up killing them all, Rip hoped that in the future, she would get the assignment. Saddler wanted to bring order to the world, an idea she despised for its stupidity. The world was chaos; trying to make it something else was the worst sort of tampering, a kind of blasphemy.

Sighing, she decided she would have to kill Seras Victoria in any case. Hellsing was a powerful enemy and getting to attack Victoria when she was cut off from Alucard or any other type of support for that matter, was an occurrence that was not likely to happen again. She would be remiss if she didn't take the opportunity to deprive Millennium's greatest enemy of one of its most powerful agents.

She began humming the opening to a German hunting song. She was, of course, The Huntress Rip van Winkle.

**To be continued…**


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter Twenty-Three

**Chapter Twenty-Three.**

The elevator emptied her into a roughly hewn stone tunnel lit by cheap electric lights one could buy in a hardware store. She heard muttering around a bend in the tunnel which sounded like a normal conversation. Her Spanish was as bad as ever but it sounded as though they were complaining about bad circuits.

She came around the corner carrying the machete but with both of her handguns ready to be drawn and fired. Standing next to some barrels and loose rocks were two peasant men, one grey haired and the other skinny with a dirty cap covering his black, dusty hair.

In a way, she was glad to see the peasants again. The robed cult members and their damned chanting had nearly driven her mad. Plus the peasants weren't as heavily armed.

Seeing Seras, they jumped in surprise, grabbing pickaxes and coming at her with them held high. The older one made the mistake of taking the lead, making backup from the one behind impossible. Seras swung hard at the wrist carrying the pickaxe, chopping it off.

The man held his bleeding stump in pain as he doubled over, exposing the back of his head which Seras struck with the machete, cleaving the top of his skull off. As he hit the ground, the parasite within him began to wriggle free, only to be stomped by Seras's boot.

Sidestepping the other man's attack, she dealt with him in a similar fashion. Running down the tunnel, knowing she was going to have to fight more of them and being thoroughly sick of it, she hoped she might run across a whetstone where she could sharpen her machete. Her strength was making it cleave through things at this point, making it more of a club.

Following a rail track used to ferry mine carts, she exited the tunnel into a huge cavern. In the center, near a drop, was a large, metallic piece of digging equipment, likely a rock separator or something, Seras didn't know and didn't care. What held her concern was the small army of peasants working on her side of the drop. Blocking the path over the drop to a door was a giant boulder.

One villager saw her and that was all it took to alert the others who dropped what they were doing and came running towards the elevated track she stood on. She considered using the ladder up to her as a chokepoint, but decided that while she could kill everyone in the mine eventually, she didn't have the time.

Instead she jumped down to the dirt ground bellow and ran as fast as her long legs would carry her towards the drop. She felt something whiz past the back of her head and was thankful it hadn't connected. A pickaxe to the skull would severely impair what she was about to attempt.

At the last moment before running off the cliff into the inky darkness bellow, she jumped with all of her strength. Her vampire legs propelled her through the air with something that might have been mistaken as flight to the casual observer. She landed easily on the other side amidst a clatter of tools and rocks thrown from the angry mob behind her.

With a backward wave, she bid them farewell and went to the door in front of her. She could feel a strange sense of heat emanating from it and wondered if the other side might be on fire.

The room wasn't on fire, but it _was_ empty. Seras could see why by looking at the floor. It was nothing more than a metal grate with a solid steel hatch in the center. Beneath the steel was what looked to be molten steel, although it might also have been lava. Seras didn't know and didn't care, she just knew it was hot.

On the right side of the room was a large switch which likely opened the hatch in the center. She thought this might be the room that was used to dispose of debris or garbage by burning it up in the molten rock.

The heat was nearly unbearable and she began walking quickly to the large door on the other side of the cavernous room wanting to get out of it as soon as possible. When the door slid up, she stopped as she felt more than heard the ground shaking footsteps coming towards her.

Through the door marched two giants, both wearing the remains of manacles around their wrists and necks. They both saw her and came lumbering forward with twisted snarls on their sub-human faces, their sausage fingers clenching and unclenching with the desire to crush her.

She moved quickly more towards the center of the room, letting them readjust their movements slightly as the made a b-line towards her. When she had them where she wanted them, she bolted for the lever she had seen and prayed it did what she thought it did.

The solid part of the floor swung down, plunging one of the giants straight into the molten lava. It screamed as its flesh disintegrated from the heat, its arms flailed trying to grab onto something. That something was its comrades back, who was only partially submerged in the burning liquid and had grabbed on to the floor.

The added weight and having its legs burned off proved to be to much and it lost its grip. Both giants slid back into the burning pit, dying and being washed away. She breathed a sigh of relief, knowing the encounter could have gone much worse. How many of those things did they have anyway?

She ran through the door they had come from, not wanting to wait around and possibly find out. The door the creatures had come from led into a high, wide tunnel which passed the large pens they had been chained in. The hall opened out into the largest cavern she had yet seen. A path cut into the rock led in a spiral around the right hand side up to hole leading into another passageway. From her map, Seras knew that was where she needed to be.

The buzzing of wings and rattling screech of giant crickets made her break into a run. Winged shapes came fluttering up from the dark cavern bottom and she briefly connected this cavern with the one she had dropped the large cricket cocoon into earlier.

"No," she said, irritated. "No crickets, I'm not in the mood."

She drew her pistol and tucked her machete under her arm as she ran up the path towards the passage. The crickets -she remembered Salazar calling them Novistadors-were flying cautiously towards her. Two went to land ahead of her, but she shot them in the wing joints, making them fall. She could hear multiple Novistadors land behind her and begin running after her, but she was faster.

The sound and vibration from something hitting the ground met her senses as she got close to the tunnel's entrance. She had no idea what it was, but found out soon enough once she entered the tunnel with the crickets not far behind.

A kind of pillar had been rigged up to come down from the tunnel's ceiling, flattening the ground beneath it. She ran towards it, slowing to let it come down once more before running beneath it as it rose. Two more such pillars were ahead of her, both close enough to make clearing them a harrowing affair.

Once on the other side with no crushed body parts, she heard the splat of an exoskeleton being popped and smiled. "Rotten bugs," she said, continuing down the tunnel. It took a turn upward where it ended with a ladder leading to the surface.

Climbing the ladder she emerged from a well out into a ruined part of the castle. Perhaps it had once been a keep of some sort, but for whatever reason, only remnants of wooden walls and stone pillars remained. Seras rechecked her map and was assured that the tower on the other end of the ruins was the one she wanted. Through it was a bridge leading over a gorge which led to the tower she wanted, the one near the water.

She desperately wanted to recover Ashley, or at least Leon, before they moved Ashley across the water. Having one of them, hopefully both, there to operate the boat would make things easier.

The door to the tower opened easily into a much nicer hallway. Entering the large room, she came upon a large spectacle that made her laugh and shake her head. At one end of the room, facing a bridge over clear pools of water that lead to the exit, was a giant stone statue of Ramon Salazar. She walked around into the bridge and looked up at it, taking it in.

It wasn't a solid piece of stone, but many pieces of metal put together, not unskillfully. Still, it was easily the tackiest tribute to a person's ego she had ever seen. "Looks like a bloody pirate," she said, shaking her head at the statue's representation of Salazar's old fashioned garb.

As if it heard her, something near its back came loose, causing it to lurch forward. Instead of falling, joints in the legs began to move, carrying the fall forward and giving the illusion that the statue had come to life and was chasing her.

She ran across the bridge towards the small steel door and saw that it was padlocked. Drawing the magnum as she ran, she fired, destroying the lock and feeling the bridge under her feet crumble.

Her powerful kick knocked the door open and she ran out over another bridge, this one made of wood and spanning a gorge. The statue struck the tower wall, causing it to crumble and collapse, forcing her to run across the wooden foot bridge as fast as she could.

The wooden bridge snapped under the weight of the crumbling wall and falling statue. She grabbed the rope to her left and nearly dropped her machete as the bridge fell against the far end of the cliff.

Feeling a bit like Indiana Jones, she climbed up the wooden bridge using the planks as rungs for her feet and hands. Upon reaching the top, she sat on the edge of the cliff and looked across at the open tower. Her keen eyes could pick out the robed cultists now milling around on the other side, most likely responsible for activating the statue. She considered using the rifle to pick a few off, just to teach them a lesson, but opted to save her bullets.

Looking down into the gorge, she could see the statue lying in ruins in the small river bellow. It was almost a shame that such an elaborate and expensive trap hadn't even scratched her. Overkill was something Salazar need to learn to tone down, she thought, getting up and going to the door to the large tower she had been heading towards.

**To be continued…**


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter Twenty-Four

**Chapter Twenty-Four.**

Salazar and his remaining henchman, the one wearing the black robe, were standing in front of an open freight elevator at the other end of the circular room. His arms were crossed over his chest and a look of pure hatred creased his face.

"After all that, you're still alive," he said, feigning calm.

She smirked and used the pause to take in her surroundings. The top of the tower, a good ninety meters up, looked to be in disrepair. The center if the tower had been outfitted with a series of elevators and winches to go along with the winding staircase to her right. If a fight broke out between them like she hoped it would, she would run to the stairway.

"That statue was the stupidest thing I've ever seen," she said, feeling a little mean despite herself. "Getting a little eccentric in your old age?"

Salazar barked a laugh. "Old age? Believe it or not, I'm only twenty years old. It doesn't matter, this is the last day of your miserable undead life."

She drew the magnum and fired. His bodyguard's reflexes were top notch; it used its tail to shove Salazar off to the side. As luck would have it for Seras, Salazar had thrown his arms up just in to catch the magnum round with his right hand.

Blood and chunks of finger bone spattered onto the wall behind Salazar, leaving him to clutch his ruined hand, screaming. "Die! Kill her, die!" he shouted like an angry child as he scurried into the elevator.

The bodyguard hurled its spear at Seras, which she almost didn't duck in time. It flew past her head and out over the cliff as the bodyguard retreated into the elevator shaft, blocking her shot at its master.

"Damn," she said as the elevator rose. Wanting to kill Salazar's bodyguard and interrogate him as to the location of her friends, she wasted no time in running up the stairs to her right.

The stairs ended prematurely, leading out onto a wooden scaffold which connected to a simple elevator. Seras could hear a commotion above her and looked to see a dozen or so red robed cultists moving around above her. She hit the button on the elevator, causing it to rise.

Heedless of their own safety, three of the red robes leapt from their perches on wooden beams down onto the elevator with Seras. All were armed with flails, which didn't help them much as she began kicking them off as soon as their feet hit the elevator floor.

One gained his footing, but was quickly run through the chest by the dulling machete and shoved off with a hard push. More came as the elevator rose, some took crossbow bolts to the back from cultists who had positioned themselves on the stone balconies.

With the elevator clear once more, Seras used her pistol to shoot the three or so crossbowmen, aiming for their weapons with the intent to stop them from shooting.

Once the elevator stopped at the top of the tower, she shot the control panel, not wanting to be followed. Walking along the scaffold as it went out around the outside of the tower, she got a good view of the castle's surroundings. She looked in the direction of Pueblo, but it was blocked by forest. What she did see was what could only be the fabled island that kept getting mentioned as an eventual destination.

There were lights on the island, some white, some red. The red ones seemed to be near the water and part of a shipping yard. The white lights, under her keen gaze, looked to provide light for industrial looking structures.

No human would be able to get that much detail from where she was, she knew, not wanting to be fooled as to the actual distance of the island over water. She still thought like a human for the most part, and was a little glad for that.

The only door Salazar and his friend could have gone through was the one up ahead leading back into the tower. It was slightly ajar and there was a blood trail on the scaffold in case Seras needed more evidence. Checking her weapons and un-slinging the rifle so she could lean it near the door, she took a breath to steady her nerves. Salazar wasn't human, and it was clear he was being chased back to his lair. Monsters were the most dangerous when chased back to their lairs.

With her machete slid through her belt and a gun in each hand, she entered the high walled room and saw Salazar and his bodyguard standing in the large part of the room as it opened out into a semi-circle.

Salazar looked like a trapped animal, but was doing his best to keep up appearances. Her attention was drawn from him and up to what was behind him, something he seemed to take delight in.

At first Seras thought it was some kind of plant. Root-like structures covered the back wall supporting four giant fleshy petals with waved gentle on their own. Seras wondered what the opposite of the word phallic was and couldn't think of it.

"You're too late," Salazar said. "The ritual is complete. Ashley is one of Los Illuminados now. She's been taken to the island to await the parasite's gestation, along with Mr. Kennedy."

"I'm surprised you haven't killed him," Seras said.

Salazar smiled as a drop of blood fell from the hand he kept tucked under his elbow. "I think killing him will Ashley's first act as a true member of our cause. Sometimes the host's will affects nature of the symbiotic relationship between it and the parasite. As a result, sometimes a test of loyalty is necessary."

Seras thought he must have something up his sleeve to be telling her such things. He wouldn't spill secrets if he thought he might lose. "I guess there's hope for me yet," she said. "Maybe I'll just end up with funny bug legs when mine hatches and not end up a slave."

"As interesting as the effects of Las Plagas on your unique body might be, we will never know," Salazar said, spreading his arms out and tilting his head back. "You have been a worthy opponent Ms. Victoria, but it's time for you to die."

Ropey tentacles crept up from the edge of the lowered area behind him and swarmed around his legs as well as the legs of the bodyguard. The petals behind him opened wide, revealing a dank hole in the center filled with quivering cilia. The tentacles enveloped the two beings, lifted them up and drew them into the hole, the petals of flesh closing over them.

They clamped tightly together and began to pulse while leaking grey/brown fluid. Seras thought it was likely one of the more disgusting things she had ever encountered. Even a bloody corpse had sweet, delicious blood, but this here lacked even that disdainful appeal.

She held her fire and looked around. There was a walkway going around her side of the room while bellow it was a sea of tentacles she knew would not be a good idea to fall into. Other than running back out the door, she only had two directions to run in.

Without knowing what was going to hatch from the makeshift cocoon, there was little she could do to plan. Whatever happened, she planned to hit it hard and with everything she had. Full aggression, no holding back. If things went well, she would have the monster dead in short order. After that she could think of a way to get to the island.

When the petals opened up, Seras winced at the sight. She could see Salazar, naked, grub-white, with half of his body transformed into ropey, tentacle structures which pulsed with fluid. He had fused with the base of the flower-like creature while his bodyguard had morphed into a long, neck-like structure, tipped with a hideous head.

The head had one giant bulbous red eye with a yellow iris, while the other was malformed and useless. The creature's mouthparts were complicated, but Seras could tell they packed a serious bite.

As two large tentacles sprouted from either side of the hideous gestalt, the bodyguard, which Seras decided the term phallic now applied, lunged at her. It was fast and powerful, but she was quicker.

Her eyes locked on Salazar, she could see bony plates rising up from around him in an attempt to form a kind of shield. "No you don't," she said, deciding it was time to get serious and take a risk.

She jumped into the back of the bodyguard's neck, relying on her vampire body to keep her balanced and keep her moving. In one of her more theatrical maneuvers, Seras ran down the creature's neck towards Salazar, who put his white, thin arms up to protect himself while the bony plates struggled to develop enough to encompass him.

He had rushed the transformation, Seras knew. He had been so eager to kill her, his impatience had won out. Realizing she was fighting basically an underdeveloped fetus, she dropped to her knees a meter in front of Salazar, gripping the bone and flesh with her powerful thighs and fired both guns at him.

Striking Salazar seemed to cause the entire organism tremendous pain, which would explain why the tentacles merely flailed instead of striking her. The magnum took Salazar's arm off at the elbow while the 9mm left smoldering holes in his chest and stomach.

Screaming wordlessly, Salazar was silenced forever when one of her magnum rounds blew the top half of his skull off. She kept firing until both guns were empty, even as Salazar melted into a pile of mush. She could feel the creature dying and looked around to see that it was true. The entire back wall seemed to be melting, made of the strange parasite's body.

Getting to her feet, she jumped down into the pit of tentacles, most of which had retracted before melting, cutting down on the size of the slowly forming pool of goop. Watching Salazar melt brought satisfaction to Seras's stressed mind. He had been one of the primary thorns in her side and it was good to finally strike a hard blow against Los Illuminados, especially after losing Leon and Ashley.

She was about to turn and find a way to the island when she spied a ladder beneath the pile of sop. Wondering what it was for, she kept looking and saw that the parasite had been concealing a door.

She was already covered in gunk, so she decided to check it out just in case after she went and retrieved the rifle from outside while reloading her handguns. Instead of leading into the parasites dead bowels, it led into a dry, musty tunnel, which Seras eagerly followed.

It led outside and down a ladder to the beach. Seras clapped and smiled when she saw the motor boat tied to the wooden pier, her glee dampened only slightly by the prospect of crossing the water.

Looking around to make sure she was alone, she set down her weapons, all save for her machete, and went to the water's edge where she waded in as far as she dared. She had no idea where the boundary was, but being in up to her waist seemed to cause no discomfort.

Seras set to work cleaning herself up, preferring to be soaked in water rather than what was left of Salazar. Not wanting to waste too much time getting clean, she went back to the shore where she began looking for a shovel to fill the boat with a layer of dirt.

She had just begun to fill it when "What _are_ you doing?" came a voice she had never heard from behind her. She turned, seeing a Asian-American woman with short black hair wearing a red evening dress with a high slip leaning against the base of the ladder Seras had used to come down.

The woman was carrying an automatic weapon, a TMP from the look if it, but hadn't raised it. How she had gotten there so quietly worried Seras. "I'm, uh,…who are you?"

"Ada Wong," she said. "Nice outfit. I used to have one just like it." A faint smile came to Ada's face.

Her words didn't click right away, but soon did. This must be the woman who looked to have been staying in the castle. Seras had made off with her gear. "Oh…sorry about that," she said. "My name is Seras…"

"Victoria, vampire agent of Hellsing," Ada finished.

Seras gulped. Who or what was this person, how much did she know, and who's side was she on? This was quite a surprise. "How do you…"

"I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you," Ada said. "And from what I've seen and heard, that would difficult, so don't make me do it."

"Look," Seras said, annoyed. She thumped her shovel onto the pier. "You can't just drop behind me and start being cryptic. Not in a situation like this, it's just…"

"Save it," Ada said, walking forward, not raising her weapon. "I'm going to come clean with you because neither of us have the time. I'm here to collect the Plaga sample. Maybe it's for the American government, maybe it's for someone else, either way it's what I want and I'm going to get it."

"Bu…"

Ada shushed Seras before she could begin. "What was I doing staying in the castle, yes I know. I'm a spy. Saddler thinks I'm on his side…or at least he did. You and I are in the same boat…literally." Her eyes went to the boat, clearly wondering why it needed dirt.

Seras's jaw worked up and down in silent protest, unable to think of something mistrustful to say. "That's enough dirt," Ada said, jumping into the boat and looking for the key, which she found. "Get in, I'll drive."

The boat started and Seras jumped in, knowing she would be at Ada's mercy once on open water. "Good," Ada said, throwing the boat into reveres and backing up. "I didn't have the time to do that whole trust building thing."

Seras began to feel as though she had made a fatal error as her stomach went cold and her limbs limp. She fell to the bottom of the boat and felt as though she were being annihilated. Pawing at the dirt around her for comfort, she gritted her teeth and vaguely heard Ada's words.

"Running water, right," Ada said. "Explains the dirt. Don't worry, I need you around to annoy Saddler so I can recover the sample. I'm not going to kill you."

Part of her wished she would, the feeling of being on open water without a coffin filled with English dirt was one of the most horrid sensations she had ever felt in her life. She wished she could pass out until it was over, but was forced to bear it as Ada sped towards the island.

**To be continued… **


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter Twenty-Five

**Chapter Twenty-Five.**

Once Ada had dragged her up off the bottom of the boat and onto the rocky ledge, it was like a switch had been flipped inside her. She was suddenly fully aware, light as a feather and no longer sinking into the depths of hell.

"Oh, God," she said, sitting up. "Oh, that was horrible…"

"Well now I think I've seen everything," Ada said, checking her TMP. "A vampire…how about that? And I thought zombies were the limit…"

"Zombies?" Seras said. "What do you mean?"

"You should know all about what I mean," Ada said. "Raccoon City, I was there too you know."

Seras blinked twice. "What?"

"I helped Leon and his little friend escape. He didn't mention me?"

Seras shook her head. "We decided to share Raccoon stories after the mission was over. Now though…."

"I'm sure he's fine," Ada said, helping Seras to her feet. "You'd be surprised how tough he really is."

"What were you doing in Raccoon City?" Seras asked, following Ada as she walked towards a cave where the water formed a lagoon.

"I was running some errands for some people and seeing the sights."

Rolling her eyes, Seras didn't believe her. There had been nothing to see in Raccoon City. She had been sent there to do something sneaky involving Umbrella or had worked for Umbrella, or something.

Then it hit her: Ada was working for Umbrella, or at least some remnant of it. Who else would be interested in Las Plagas? Plenty of people, but somehow Umbrella seemed to be the only answer. She had killed their executive board herself and the U.N. itself had more or less frozen the company's assets. Still, it was entirely possible there were behind the scenes players, subsidiaries…the list went on.

Ada couldn't be allowed to leave with the sample. Shooting her in the back of the head would ensure that she didn't, but Seras simply couldn't do something so cold blooded to someone who had done her no harm. It was also clear that so long as it served her ends, Ada was an ally against Los Illuminados, and she needed allies at the moment.

They crossed a wooden plank over a thin chasm and moved around the rock. It was still dark out; Seras had no idea of the time but guessed it was late at night. Rounding the rock face, they came to another wooden plank bridge and some kind of dilapidated guard outpost.

A spotlight shone from a post on one of the tarpaper shacks, illuminating the wooden bridge leading from their end of the rock to the other. Ada stopped and began looking over the other side, scouting for trouble as Seras did the same.

"Whoever's watching will spot us the second we walk into that light," Ada said.

"Lets smash it and run to the left behind those buildings," Seras said. "They'll know we're here, but not where."

Ada fired up at the light without warning and ran. Seras followed, happy to have another gun backing her up. She followed Ada around to the other side of a two story shack, seeing movement out of the corner of her eye in the center of the mini-compound. It was a large man, not as big as Mendez had been, but large all the same. He had two bandoliers draped cross-fashion over his dirty shirt and sported a flaming red beret atop his tanned head.

Another feature of his Seras didn't like was the large chain gun he had slung over his shoulder by a strap. With a shout, he opened fire, the bullets slamming into the side of the wooden building.

"Looks like we found the guard," Ada said.

"He's got a gun," Seras said. "They've got guns now…"

"Relax," Ada said as the bullets stopped. "From what I was told, only a few RPGs and chain guns are in their arsenal. It's mostly crossbows, flails and stun guns."

Seras could hear the gun wielder's heavy footsteps shuffling around Ada's side of the tower. The fact that she was so calm told Seras she was a pro, not someone to be underestimated.

They ran back around upon hearing the gun open up again. The man was firing before he came around the corner, leaving them no chance to shoot him first before he came into view.

The structure they were using for cover wasn't too thick, and a few bullets were getting though, missing them fortunately. "Ada," Seras said. "I'll keep him busy for a second. You go around behind him."

Ada wasted no time running around the other side, while Seras drew the magnum and aimed it around the corner. Her plan was to hold her ground and fire while Ada attacked from behind. Bullets that went through her cover would cause her injury, but not death, unlike Ada for whom a gunshot wound was a much more serious affair.

Seras began firing as soon as woodchips began to fly. Only her gun and hand were exposed, but she felt something hot and fast tear through the skin and fat on her right hip, making her wince. "Come on, Ada," she said through gritted teeth, firing blindly and awaiting the eventual bullet to her head.

She had never had her brains blown out before and was not looking forward to the experience. She could survive it, but it was literally unthinkable to have it happen. Upon hearing rounds from a lighter automatic weapon go off and loud gargles of pain from a male throat, she breathed a sigh of relief.

Hearing the man drop and the chain gun fall to silence, she peered around the corner to see Ada standing behind him, reloading her TMP and the man dead on the ground.

"Sounds like company," Ada said as muffled voices followed the sound of a stone door sliding open. Seras's own keen sense picked up dozens of footsteps clattering down stone and onto dirt. Turning, she saw a small army pouring out of a door atop a set of steps on the other end of the compound.

"Sounds like an opportunity," Seras said, rushing over to the fallen man and picking up his gun. "Can you feed me?" she said, kicking the ammunition bands around the mans body.

Seras moved around the tower to face the oncoming horde. They hadn't known exactly what was happening when they entered the yard, and had done nothing to duck or otherwise avoid the hail of bullets Seras sent their way.

There were about fifty of them to start and thirty after the first volley. Ada helped lock another string of bullets into the magazine and held it straight as Seras kept firing. Once most had gone down, she kept shooting, not worried about overheating the gun. As tempting as it was to heft the thing around, she knew she would going into interior places where the weapon's size would make in unusable. Plus, hitting Ashley or Leon at some point on accident was also a possibility.

She stopped spraying the area and began firing smaller bursts at the attackers who had gone off into small groups or hidden by themselves. Once confident they were all dead, Seras dropped the large gun.

"My, you're strong," Ada said. "You hefted that thing around like was a stick."

Seras turned to look at Ada's face. She was impressed, but not amazed or taken aback. It felt good to not be looked at like a freak after doing something freakish. "Thanks," Seras said. "I think I'll leave it all the same though."

"Good idea," Ada said. "Throw it in the water. We don't need it coming back to bite us."

Seras picked the chain gun up and walked to the edge of the rock overlooking the salty water. With a light heave, she sent the weapon into the brine, feeling a small pang of regret over wrecking a perfectly good heavy weapon, especially after it had served her so well.

"I think we work well as a team," Ada said, walking towards the door the men had come pouring out of. They had all been dressed like modern dock workers with jeans, vests and bandannas. "If we keep this up, I'll have my sample and you'll have Leon and Ashley back in no time."

Seras didn't know about the sample part, but the rest she could agree with. "You don't seem worried about Leon. He was in bad shape the last time I saw him."

Something in Ada's posture changed for a moment. Cold, calm indifference became something slightly more deliberate. It was quick, but Seras had seen it. "Like I said before, he's tough. He might even escape and help us out…or rescue the girl before you do."

That might have been a jab or it might have been an attempt to reassure herself. Perhaps both. Seras could tell Ada was a hard woman to read, but Leon seemed to be a chink in her armor. One thing Seras knew she was not, was a master of intrigue, so she decided not to prod anymore and to focus on her mission.

**To be continued…**


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter Twenty-Six

**Chapter Twenty-Six.**

Valleys had been dug into the rocky outcroppings and mounds that made up the island. Seras and Ada made their way through them carefully, wary of ambushes and booby traps. The men that did show up to bar their path weren't villagers or cult members, but had been infested with the parasite all the same.

They walked down a rocky crevice, the jagged stone walls becoming smooth concrete with ominous walkways above them. Seras kept her eye on them, expecting an ambush but didn't get one. The concrete wall ended in a dead end, but there was a door on the left leading into the facility.

Ada had said nothing to Seras aside from warnings to duck and where the parasite infested soldiers were taking cover. Her sudden appearance and revelation that she too was a Raccoon City survivor hadn't quite been internalized yet. Seras was still open to the possibility that she was lying, but if she was, she was quite good at it.

The door led into a dirty hallway past a small pantry walled off only by a disheveled shelf. Glancing at the dubious looking food, Seras wondered if Ashley was hungry or thirsty; it was easier than wondering where she being held. With no idea of how large the complex they had entered was, Seras had no way of guessing how long the search would take.

"Nice place," Ada said, of the dark hallway and pantry. The peeling walls, loose wires and dim, dying light bulbs made the place seem abandoned even though Seras's ears told her it was not by the hum of far off machines.

"Do you know anything about it?" Seras asked. "I've been flying blind more or less since I started."

"Follow me," Ada said, continuing down the hall. "There's only a few good places to hide a hostage in this dump."

The dump, from what Seras could tell, had once been a military base, which would explain the nearby shipyard. As Seras pondered the possibility of finding a weapon stockpile, her ears picked up something that made her move past Ada.

"What is it?" Ada asked.

"Ashley," Seras said, hearing the girl's voice. She was shouting about something not far up ahead.

Seras burst through a cheap, hanging door with the magnum ready to kill everyone without blond hair and brown eyes, but was disappointed to see a security monitoring station showing video and audio of Ashley Graham being herded into a room by two men with bandannas tied over the lower half of their faces.

"Get away from me!" she shouted as they dragged her to the back of a storage room, one grabbing an arm each. She kicked at their shins and tugged, only to be shoved to the ground and sworn at.

Seras looked for a transmitter button near the monitor Ashley was on, and saw one. Holding it in, she leaned into a microphone. "Ashley, where are you?" she said into it.

Ashley looked up and around, confused along with her two guards. "Seras!?"

Before she could give her a clue or Seras could say anything else, one of the guards threw a hatchet into the camera, destroying it along with the intercom. "That looked like a storage room," Ada said. "What does the label on that monitor say?"

Seras winced, realizing the label would tell her what room Ashley had been in. Getting directions from Ashley hadn't been necessary. "Section A4," she said.

"That's past the garbage disposal pit," Ada said. "It's also near the radio tower, which you might want to check out. I'm afraid this is where we part company for now."

"What?" Seras said, even as Ada was turning to leave.

"The fastest way to Saddler is in the other direction. The commotion you'll cause from trying to rescue the girl should be all the distraction I need. Catch you later," Ada said., disappearing further down the hall.

Seras blinked, unsure of how to react. Ada was free to do what she wanted, but something didn't seem right about letting her walk off like that. She shook her head and went through another door, finally making up her mind when she saw a sign pointing towards the waste management area.

Unless Ada's true goal was to get to Ashley before her and this was some kind of trick, Seras felt a little better knowing Ashley was in one location which she might soon be able to find. They were also closer to the machine that would remove the parasite from their respective bodies. Having the thing out of Ashley at least would be a load off Seras's mind.

She came to a T-junction where there was a decision to make. One way pointed towards the reeking garbage section, while the other pointed towards an operation room. Cold air from the operating rooms had caused frost to form on the wall about halfway down, and Seras decided to take a quick peek in that direction. It was possible Leon was being kept there along with the removal machine.

The doors were automatic and made a sound that sent her mind back six years to the Umbrella laboratory beneath Raccoon City. Entering a small sterilization room which was anything but, she expected to see Umbrella's logo emblazoned on a door or a wall. Seras thought it was almost a shame the defunct company wasn't involved this sort of thing was right up their alley.

Inside the lab proper, Seras gasped at what she saw. Hanging on metal beam by hooks were bodies. Grey, humanoid, and sexless bodies. Each with elongated arms and misshaped, monstrous heads. Her gun was up and aiming, but she lowered it when they showed no signs of life.

Her sharp ears picked up a human moan coming from the operating room to the right. Forgoing some caution, she went and peered through the glass viewing window and saw Leon strapped to a dirty operating table inside.

The automatic door opened for her as she rushed in to attend to Leon. He was shirtless and had been beaten bloody on top if the wounds Saddler had given him the last time she had seen him. "Leon," Seras said, looking him over. "How badly are you hurt?"

He sat up as Seras broke the leather straps holding him down. Wiping his bloodstained face and blinking the eye that hadn't been swollen shut, he looked glad to see her. "Seras," he said. "Ashley, they…"

"I know where she is," Seras said. "She's being held in a storage room past the garbage drop. All we have to do is get her to that machine Luis told us about and we can leave this stupid place."

Leon smiled, liking the sound of her words. "I think my gear is over there," he said, pointing to a box in the corner.

"Can you walk?"

Leon slid off the table and flexed his limbs. Seras, while checking him for track marks, hoping they wouldn't have another parasite to remove, caught herself looking more than was polite.

He saw her doing it and smiled. "It's cold in here," he said. "I'd like my shirt."

Leon strapped his pistol belt on first and checked the weapon before beginning to clothe himself. Seras waited patiently until she heard something from the other room, a bump, like something flopping onto the floor. Leon heard it too, having just finished pulling down his shirt.

The automatic door slid open, revealing the tall figure of one of the grey men that had been hanging on the rack she had seen coming in. Its head was twitching from side to side as it walked forward, making Leon rapidly back up next to Seras who was also putting distance between herself an the thing.

Its blood red eyes, nose-less face and wide, toothy grin made it look like some freakish Halloween monster, topped off by the gargling hissing sound coming from its throat. Seras shot it in the head with her magnum, blowing the top half of its head completely off.

Walking forward as though nothing had happened, Seras slid the operating table towards it, slowing it slightly as twisting strands of flesh whipped around and together, reforming its head.

"Oh God, it's a regenerator," Seras said, shooting both of its legs, severing them at the knees. It feel to the ground, but began twisting its body forward, slithering like a snake. Its reformed jaws began snapping as it came at them.

"Run," Leon said, darting around the operating table and avoiding the thing crawling beneath it. Seras bolted forward, jumping into the table, landing on her butt and swinging her legs around to the ground on the other side.

She could only pray that the others didn't suddenly decide to come alive and join the party as she looked around for a way to lock the door and trap the creature. She found none, but smiled when she saw a large cylinder marked as being liquid nitrogen. "Leon," she said, tucking the magnum into its holster and hefting the cylinder. "Knock the end off when I signal."

Leon stopped in front of the exit and moved around where he could shoot the valve stem of the cylinder. Seras held the tank under her arm like a gun and waited for the creature to come lumbering out on its new legs.

It came out with its teeth clacking, likely hungry as hell from its ridiculous metabolism. "Now," Seras said.

Leon fired at the cylinder, knocking the valve off and sending a cloud of freezing gas shooting out the front. Seras walked it forward, giving the creature an intense dose, hearing it harden and freeze.

Once the tank was spent, she threw it at the grotesque, frozen figure, shattering it completely. "Just like in the movies," Seras said, thinking to earlier when she had used the same trick on Salazar's bodyguard.

"You think that did the trick?" Leon said, looking at the heap of icy chips.

"If we killed the parasites in its body, which it looks like we did," Seras said. "It's them I'm worried about." She gestured towards the rack of regenerators hung up on hooks. Most looked like the one she had already killed, but there some particularly horrid variations. One with its skull bisected by its vertical jaw, another with two dozen eyes and a circular mouth gave Seras the creeps.

"Lets just go," Leon said, clearly not happy about the close proximity they had been in while he had been helpless on the table. "I think they wanted to feed me to those things…or turn me into one."

"Salazar told me they wanted Ashley to kill you once she turned for good," Seras said. "But who knows…"

They left the operating room after Seras confirmed that the machine to remove the parasite was not there. She suspected there were other operating rooms and that they would find what they needed there.

Heading towards the garbage area, Leon brought Seras up to speed with what little he knew. They had been overwhelmed back at the castle by cultists and one of Salazar's bodyguards. That was where he had received his clobbering. Beyond that, he knew very little.

Seras had more to tell. Salazar's death, the dockyard, and Ada's appearance.

"Ada? Ada Wong?" Leon said, stopping her near the stinking hole the garbage was dumped into.

"That's what she told me," Seras said. "She said she was after the Plaga sample and was using us to distract Saddler while she went after it. She said she knew you and that you had been in Raccoon City together."

"If it's the same woman, and it sounds like it is from hearing how she wandered off like that, then she's telling the truth," Leon said.

"Well…we can't let her get that sample can we?" she asked, wanting a second opinion on the sample's priority.

"Not if we can help it," Leon said. "She wanted the G-virus sample back in Raccoon, but I'm not sure she ever got it. I don't know who she works for exactly, but whoever it is, is bad news."

Seras remembered the purple vial she had removed from Sherry Birkin's locket near the ruined train tunnel. After pocketing it, she had more or less forgotten about it until she escaped the city. A serious oversight, considering the potential for disaster it had held. Currently it was sitting in a safe deep within the Hellsing mansion.

"I'm wondering how she plans to get it from Saddler," Seras said, continuing into the facility, wanting to be away from the wet smell of rotting garbage. "He looked tough."

"He'll pay," Leon said. "Sooner or later."

Luis Sera…He'd made his mistakes, Seras thought, but Saddler would pay for killing him. Not for a while perhaps, but Los Illuminados was a big enough threat to humanity and England to warrant extermination by Hellsing. "Hopefully sooner," Seras said, thinking they were getting closer to Ashley by the second.

**To be continued… **


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter Twenty-Seven

**Chapter Twenty-Seven.**

There were two men guarding the room Ashley had been locked in, but they weren't the same two men who had thrown her in there.

They were twins; both were at least seven feet tall, bald, and carrying iron hammers. Both were wearing metal plates over their vital organs. The two men came forward side by side in the narrow hall with their hammers raised for twin downward strikes.

"Have it your way," Seras said, shooting them both in the head, decapitating them. They staggered backward, both sprouting pulsing parasites with whipping blades that clattered off the concrete walls.

Leon finished them both off with his smaller caliber pistol. Both fell to the floor and began to melt, leaving only their reinforced clothes and hammers. Stepping over them, Seras and Leon went to the metal door and tried to open it only to find that it was locked.

Ashley's face appeared behind the small barred window, flushed with relief. "Seras, Leon," she said, sounding on the verge of tears. "I thought you'd never come."

"Just glad you're alright," Seras said. "How's your, uh…" she touched her own chest lightly.

"I haven't felt anything," Ashley said. "I cough now and again, but their weird little ritual was just for show, I think."

"Stand back," Seras said, waiting for Ashley to move away from the door. Throwing her shoulder into the door like she had been trained to do many years ago by the London police, her strength broke the door off its hinges.

"Looks like the gang's back together," Leon said, leaning against the hallway wall, still obviously tired from the battering he had taken. "Next step is to find this machine and get the bugs out."

Seras checked her magnum and wasted no time taking point. Ashley followed her, while Leon brought up the rear. Although she was immeasurably glad to have them both back where she could see them, there was little else to say.

They returned to the garbage drop and headed up the stairs back towards the dreaded operating room, where Seras stopped abruptly, making Ashley bump into her back. "What is it?" Ashley asked.

At the end of the hall, partially covered in shadow was a regenerator. It saw Seras and began its march down the hall only to be joined by another from behind, then another from the other hall on the left. Her ears told her that there were more on the loose, but were out of view.

"Looks like they woke up," Leon said. "We should leave."

"Yes," Seras said quietly, suddenly feeling the extreme vulnerability of her human charges. She had a feeling the regenerators could do a number on her as well.

They ran back to the garbage pit and stopped as the door in front of them burst open, admitting a large regenerator with a T-shaped jaw and black spines jutting out from dozens of points on its body. The door behind them opened as well, announcing they had been trapped.

Twitching, the spiked regenerator advanced, giving Seras the impression that once it got close, it would reveal how fast it could actually be. "Jump," she said. "Into the pit, now."

Leon grabbed a reluctant Ashley and leapt into the smelling hole as Seras shot the spiked regenerator in the legs and turned to do the same to the first one through the door on the other side; whatever bought them time.

The fall was longer than Seras had hoped, but thankfully there was a deep pile of trash and refuse to stop their fall. Her gratefulness was short lived however, as the smell was enough to make her gag.

She held her breath and helped Leon and Ashley out of the trash pile, happy to see it was more than a simple pit but opened up into an underground series of water channels, used to flush garbed into bins for transport.

Wet and stinking, they wasted no time running through the opening on the other end of the room and into the processing floor. The sound of bodies hitting the trash pile heralded the arrival of the regenerators and spurred their progress.

Seras stopped when she saw a lever set into the wall just as they went under and arch. Pulling it, she smiled as a barred door came crashing down. The bars were thick and close together; unless the regenerators could contort their bodies, there was no getting through.

Running ahead farther just in case, they stopped to catch their breath. Spying a green garden hose next to a filthy sink, Seras turned the knob and was pleased to see clean water spout out the nozzle. She splashed her face and hair with water and washed the gunk from her clothes, happier to be wet than sticky with God only knew what.

Leon and Ashley made use of the hose as well, the threat of a minor, or in Leon's case a major, cut being infected by something in the filth was quite real to them. They were also both quite thirsty.

"I'm not sure how drinkable this is," Leon said. "But I guess we'll risk it."

Beyond the trash room was a series of service tunnels. They kept to the main corridor while checking side rooms for ammunition and whatever else might be useful. A can of potted meat, which Leon's nose dubbed edible, was eaten quickly by Ashley and Leon, who hadn't realized how hungry they had both been. They also happened across a bathroom.

While waiting for Ashley to finish, Seras once again felt out of place. She didn't need to drink, eat, or use the toilet. Her one true need was human blood, and like the Raccoon lab, any blood packets she might run across were likely infected with something.

A large shutter door which opened via two buttons on either side of it being pushed at the same time revealed a giant garage with a construction vehicle parked in the center. Beyond the vehicle was a large maintenance tunnel, big enough to make them think it would make for a long walk with plenty of points to be ambushed or even swarmed.

"Lets take a ride," Leon said, climbing up onto the flatbed of the vehicle which turned out to be a cross between a bulldozer and a dump truck. The trio looked over the simple controls, prompting Ashley to volunteer as driver.

"Are you sure you can drive this thing?" Leon asked.

She gave him an annoyed look. "Just because I'm a girl, Leon, doesn't mean I can't…"

"You could lend her your gun," Seras said, trying to keep her face as straight as possible.

"You can drive," Leon said.

Ashley started the machine, making it lurch forward, knocking Leon and Seras off their feet. "Sorry," Ashley shouted over the loud rattle of the engine. "I think I got it."

The first corner she took was harrowing, but Ashley seemed to be getting the hang of the machine fast enough, which was good since their drive had attracted attention.

They came running into the main tunnel from service doors and smaller access tunnels, about twenty infested soldiers. "Looks like Saddler's private army doesn't like us using their equipment," Seras said, exchanging her powerful magnum for her 9mm and firing shots at the closest soldier. The dozer was moving slightly slower than a human at full speed, making it possible for the soldiers to catch up and grab onto the back of the machine.

When they did, they were rewarded with bullets to their heads or boots to their fingers. To conserve ammo, Seras holstered her pistol and used the machete to remove fingers and hands once they got close. Leon, in turn, shot the soldiers who had jumped from catwalks above them.

The tunnel was steadily angling up and eventually came outside into the cool night air. While the infested soldiers recovered quickly from having their hands maimed by a machete, their stamina was not unlimited and they were soon outdistanced by the machine as the hill became steeper.

Seras had to draw her magnum when a large truck sped around the corner behind them. The windshield had been replaced with a steel plate, leaving only a narrow slit for the driver to see through. Aiming with her invisible third eye, she put a bullet through the slit and into the driver's forehead. The truck soon broke hard to the left, smashing into the wall and coming to a stop.

As they crested a hill, Seras turned to see they had reached the end of the line. "Where's the break?" Ashley shouted, looking around and not paying attention to what was in front of her. The dozer angled to the left, towards the corner of a grey, concrete building.

Seras yanked Ashley off the driver's seat and pulled her backward, away from the front of the machine as it plowed into the wall, crumbling it. The machine pushed its way deep into the structure's side before stalling out and leaving them to cough their way through a cloud of dust.

"Lets go," Leon said, leading them into the building. "Those jokers behind us are going to catch their breath any minute."  
They ran through a door in the ruined room and down a hallway. As they went, Seras grew to like the chain of events less and less. They were supposed to be looking for a machine that would remove the parasite from Ashley, and hopefully her as well. Instead they were being chased blindly through the facility and playing things by ear.

They burst into hallway, Seras and Leon with their weapons drawn, performing a police-fashion sweep with their pistols. Ashley gasped at the same time Leon and Seras saw the large purple hooded figure looming on the other side of the room at the end of the hall, near a door.

The tentacles on his staff flailing, Saddler walked to the center of the room with his free hand held straight up, palm towards them. Seras found herself suddenly unable to move. It was like something inside her had seized up, making it hard to so much as think.

"Seras," Leon said, sounding confused, as Ashley walked past them both towards Saddler. "Ashley, no!" He went to grab Ashley's shoulder, but Seras stepped in and pistol whipped him across the back of the neck, her mind screaming in protest as she did.

Leon brushed against Ashley as he went down, holding his head. "Thank you, Ms. Victoria," Saddler said as Ashley stood next to him and turned to face her two friends, revealing her red eyes. "Now, kill him."

Seras wanted to scream as her gun arm raised towards Leon and her finger wrapped around the trigger. Internally, she was screaming. Screaming for her arm to stop, for her body to obey her mind's commands.

Her mind was no longer in direct control of her body. The parasite within her was. Scrambling for ideas, she forced her will on the thing she could sense living in her chest, flushed with her blood and her essence. Although difficult, she regained limited control over herself in a roundabout fashion by manipulating the thing manipulating her.

Saddler concentrated, but soon let out a sigh of disgust. "As I feared," he said. "These so called, True Vampires, are unsuitable hosts. There is no place for you in the new world, my dear Seras," Saddler said, shoving the air in front of him.

It was like a truck had struck her in the chest. She was sent hurtling backward where the back of her head slammed hard into the wall along with her rifle into her back, cracking the stock.

"Someone will be along shortly to deal with you both," Saddler said, as though they were old friends but he had some other business to attend and would see them later. "Come, Ashley."

It was about a minute before Seras could move again, her body finally obeying her orders to the letter. Leon was holding his head and aiming his gun at her with suspicion in his eyes. "Is that you?" he asked.

She nodded, hating the look he was giving her. "I'm back…is it too late for Ashley?"

Leon shook his head. "I don't think so…she was fine until he showed up. With the others, he doesn't need to be around."

"He's probably long gone by now," she said, despair creeping into her voice. "How are we going to get her back?"

Leon pulled out his radio, which was complete with an LCD screen. He tapped in a few times and showed it to Seras after studying it. "I put a tracking device on her after you whacked me…luckily. I thought you had cracked my head open."

There was a large bump forming on Leon's head, further proof Saddler's control had never been complete. Either that or the parasite didn't know its host's true strength. Had her heart been in the blow, Leon would be missing the back half of his skull. "We can ambush him," Seras said. "I'll fire shots while you try to grab Ashley. Once you have her, I'll rush in and distract him. He'll win, but it will buy you some time."

It sounded bleak, but it was all they were left with. "I'm more worried about who or what he's sent to take care of us," Leon said. "Plus, there's Ada. She has a knack for tossing monkey wrenches into people's plans."

"Let's hope she tosses one down Saddler's throat," Seras said, checking the rifle slung across her back. The barrel had been broken off from the stock, making the gun all but useless. "At least I won't have to lug this around," she said, tossing it to the floor, but keeping the bullets in case.

"Always a silver lining," Leon said, going through the door Saddler had disappeared through. Seras followed, hoping their fortunes would turn once more and for the last time.

**To be continued… **


	28. Chapter 28

Chapter Twenty-Eight

**Chapter Twenty-Eight.**

The dank hall Saddler had traveled down was an old, abandoned prison, although what it had been used to hold recently was up for debate. The stench of rot had filled the high, narrow brick corridor with four large cells, two on either side.

The first cell on their right was broken open, the walls smeared with dried blood along with the chains hanging from the ceiling. The one on the left was shut, but hung up by chains was a bag something wet and dripping. Leon and Seras both pointed their guns at it once it started to twitch, making the chains holding it up shake.

It stopped before they opened fire, seemingly harmless. "What the hell is that thing?" Leon asked, keeping a careful eye on the bloody bag.

"I don't think I want to know," Seras said. "As long as it doesn't move again I don't…"

Footsteps, followed by hissing, made her stop and swiftly turn her head along with her gun down the hall. Stepping out of the second cell on the left was another regenerator. It was hard to tell with the creature's grey skin, but Seras thought she saw a wash of blood down its face and chest, as though it had been eating.

Her first thought was to shoot out its legs and head, run over it and go out the door on the other end, but the ruined stairwell on the other side made her forget it. With Leon's wounds, it would take them precious seconds to climb up the ruined concrete and avoid the rusty rebar, meanwhile the creature would have grown its limbs back resumed the offensive.

"What do we do?" Leon asked, backing up. The creature's progress was slow, but steady.

"Luis said to kill the parasites in its body," Seras said, thinking back to the one she had shot the head off earlier. The parasites could be anywhere on the creature's body. She didn't know how big they might be, or how many there were. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, letting herself settle.

"What's wrong?" Leon asked, still moving backward.

"Let me concentrate," she said, letting her mind sink. Imagining her brain dropping from her head into her chest. When her mind made contact with the parasite, she felt as though she'd fallen into a pool made up of wires, each one connecting to something distant.

Using a combination of her vampiric aiming abilities and her newfound and unwanted Plaga connection, she raised her magnum, eyes closed, and fired three times. She opened them in time to see the creature begin to twitch, then bloat like a balloon in the midsection before exploding, leaving only a pair of quickly dissolving legs on the prison floor.

"How did you know where to shoot?" Leon asked.

"I, uh…I guess I'm partially one of them now…" she said, not happy in the least, even though she had no idea how she would have killed the regenerator otherwise without losing a lot of blood or ammunition.

"Let's hope it doesn't get any worse," he said, making his way towards the other end of the hall, checking the LCD on his radio. Seras remembered the order she had been given to cut the parasite out of her body if she began to lose control, but didn't think it was a good idea. She would most certainly need blood after that and the only viable human around was Leon.

After helping Leon climb the broken stairs, they went though the door, down another flight of steps and through a boiler room. Past the boiler was a mesh fence protecting water tanks, the only way over them was up a ladder and across a steel mesh floor. Leon went up first, his progress steady but pained.

Halfway across the mesh platform, Seras's ears picked up the sound of a hammer cocking. She looked up to her left in time to see the spark of a musket and a puff of smoke.

She could actually see the Magic Bullet speeding towards her and had time to wonder why she had been hit by it before back at the castle. Perhaps her body simply remembered being attacked in such a fashion, or maybe she had just a pint more blood in her than she did back then, although she doubted that very much. What was more likely was the parasite's power had combined with her vampiric abilities, making her the embodiment of what Saddler had been after in joining forces with Millennium.

Sidestepping the bullet, she turned on it as it ripped through the walkway and came back towards her. Drawing her pistol, she fired at it, her bullet meeting it in the air and removing the momentum from it, letting it drop t the floor bellow.

Rip van Winkle had placed the butt of her musket on the ground and was dropping something down the barrel. She tapped the stock on the platform she was perched on, settling the powder and ball she had loaded into the barrel, forgoing the use of a ramrod. "I don't know how you did that, Seras Victoria, but let's see your friend do the same."

She picked the musket up, slipping a cap over the nipple after pulling the hammer back, all in one fluid motion. Seras was sure there was no one else alive who could wield a musket in such a fashion and yelled for Leon to take cover.

Rip fired as Leon ran. Seras moved as well, putting herself between the bullet and Leon. The musket crashed into her hip, causing her to shriek with pain and fall to her left side.

Leon stopped and fired at Rip, who leapt down onto the mesh platform and dived into a c-roll, coming up behind Seras, who felt the lead ball tear its way out of her hip and go flying off in the direction Rip had once occupied.

Knowing it would be back, Seras rolled painfully onto her stomach, having drawn both of her handguns and fired at Rip. Not thinking Seras would recover so quickly, Rip could do nothing but raise her musket in front of her head and hope none of Seras's bullets struck her in the heart.

The bullets slammed into Rip's weapon, ruining it. Rip was left holding the barrel along with the wooden forearm, the stock landing next to her thigh. "Damn you," Rip said, her eyes looking away and tracking something.

Seras went to move but it was too late. The Magic Bullet passed through her side, hitting her kidney and down through the floor where it came back up again through her stomach. Dropping her guns and gripping the floor, Seras pulled herself to her feet, tasting blood in her mouth and her body wash with pain.

Leon was firing, but stopped as Seras charged Rip, intent on killing her before the Magic Bullet tore her to shreds. She felt it go into her left butt-cheek and exit the top of her leg, making her fall on Rip who lashed out with the steel barrel of her ruined musket, catching Seras in the jaw.

Severely damaged, Seras felt her mind begin slipping into the background, letting the hungry animal that always seemed to dwell inside her take control. She tore the barrel from Rip's hand and used it to stab downward, pinning the snarling vampire to the ground through her midsection.

She still had the presence of mind to look up and see the Magic Bullet's return, this time much slower. Seras held a hand up and caught it, feeling it burn into her palm and stop. Clenching the bulleted fist, she punched Rip in the face, putting her into a daze. Two more punches and Seras opened her mouth wide, feeling her teeth sharpen and extend.

Tearing into Rip van Winkle's throat was both the most disgusting and satisfying thing she had done in recent memory. She had no idea how badly her body was craving quality blood until Rip's hot, potent blood washed into mouth and down her throat, taking her essence and soul along with it.

She could feel Rip die by inches, absorbed into her, becoming one with her along with the small club of human's Seras had drained to death in her short time as a vampire. All were nasty people and Rip seemed to be little different.

Leon's shouts drew Seras back to reality, or perhaps she had merely drank her fill. Pulling her head up from Rip's bloody mess of a throat, Seras wiped her face as much as she possibly could using the dry part of Rip's shirt, before turning to face Leon.

The man was looking at her with a mixture of disgust and fear, a look that cut to the core of her being and made her want to crawl off someplace dark and never come out again. Seras could feel Rip's memories and thoughts floating in her mind, and worked to burry them for later use. Right now, she was too ashamed to sort through them.

"Leon, I…I…" she stammered, knowing she had done nothing wrong but unable to get beyond the look on his face, which, thankfully, was softening.

"It's alright, Seras," Leon said, looking away and reloading his pistol. "I understand."

No he didn't, she thought. No human did. Sir Integra and Walter came close, but she was more convinced now than ever that the only person, if he could be called that, in the world who would ever understand what she had just done was Alucard. She felt like crying, but held her tears back, angrily deciding that there was nothing to cry about.

She stood, hoping to find someplace to wash up again soon. "Let's just go," she said. "I'm sorry you had to see that."

"Don't be," Leon said, walking towards her and she picked up her own weapons. "Look…I'm not going to pretend that wasn't a little weird, okay? But I know it's not something you enjoy…"

"I do enjoy it," she said, her voice cracking. "I've never felt better."

"Funny, you look like you're about to have a breakdown. I'd say that says something about you."

She swallowed and nodded, realizing that it wasn't fair to ask him to console her or help her deal with her issues about being a vampire; issues she had been wrestling with for years. "I'll be alright," she said. "It's just…when you looked at me like that, I…"

"I'm sorry," Leon said. "That witch deserved it. I've seen worse anyway."

That didn't make her feel better, knowing he must have been talking about the creatures in Raccoon, but she decided to nod and smile, knowing this was as good as it would get for a while yet. "Well, that's one more enemy down. If she's all Saddler had left to send, we're doing pretty well. Let's go."

Leon nodded, and slowly made his way to the other end of the platform, checking his tracking device once more. "Looks like they've stopped," he said.

**To be continued… **


	29. Chapter 29

Chapter Twenty-Nine

**Chapter Twenty-Nine.**

According to Leon's device, Ashley had stopped not far up ahead, but the strength of the signal suggested she might be up or down a few levels..

Seras could see the walls becoming more high tech and better maintained as they went through hallways and down two flights of stairs. She was beginning to dislike it, the constant switching from medieval dankness, industrial decay, and ultra modern sterility, among other motifs.

An automatic door slid open, revealing a glass-walled hallway Seras didn't like the look of one bit. Leon didn't care for it either, giving it the once over twice before setting foot inside, there being no other choice.

Seras followed and heard the door seal shut behind her. They did the perfunctory turn and try to open the door routine, now sorry they had entered the hallway which had turned out to be as sinister as they had suspected.

Something crackled at the far end, near the exit door. On either side of the wall were half a dozen black devices, each one perfectly adjacent to the other. Crackling with electricity, orange lasers clicked on, connecting each node and forming lethal looking bars of light.

"Looks like that way is blocked," Seras said just before the lasers began to move towards them at an alarming speed.

"Shoot!" Leon shouted, firing at the nodes generating the lasers.

Her hand was a blur of motion. Each shot from the magnum was dead on, each laser destroyed before it was three meters from cutting them in half. "Nice shot," Leon said, looking at his own gun with dismay. "Lucky you're here."

She didn't want to admit it, but he _was _lucky to have her there. He had been doing an award winning job of playing the tough-guy, but she could see that his various injuries were taking their toll. Unlike her, a quick meal would not make everything better in a matter of moments. Leon needed about a week's worth of rest by her estimate.

"We're both lucky," she said. "I'd be up a creek without you right now, Mr. Tracking Device. You kept Rip off me for a few seconds too."

"We can compliment each other later," Leon said, not unkindly. "Let's hurry."

Beyond the far door, which thankfully had unlocked after the lasers were destroyed, was a type of throne room built with the same look as the hallway. Everything was smooth and sterile looking, even the red stuffed leather of the chair.

At first glance, it looked to be a dead end, but Seras spotted a seam along the wall behind the throne, along with a button on the back of the chair. She pushed it and the wall slid open, revealing a tiny lift.

Seemingly designed for one person to use at a time, Leon and Seras crowded onto it, facing each other uncomfortably close. "Going down?" Leon asked, smiling.

Seras pushed the button which sent the lift down and shut the door above them. The pitiful amount of light emanating from bulbs in the elevator's shaft didn't matter much to Seras, who could easily see Leon examining her closely in what he perceived to be near darkness.

She coughed, inching backward as far as she could. "Tight fit."

"I know," Leon said, not sounding like he minded.

When the ride ended and the door at the bottom opened, they both got off at the same time, nearly tripping over each other's feet. Far from being smooth and sterile, they were now in a damp rock tunnel. Leon fished around in his pocket for a flashlight and clipped it to his belt, illuminating the passage. Checking the tracking device monitor, he shook it once. "It hasn't moved at all," he said. "She should be just up ahead, or…"

"Or what?" Seras said, following him, checking her gun to make sure she had loaded it.

"Or…" Leon held the thought until the passage opened into another massive cavern with a deep chasm in the middle. At the top of the incline they were headed up was a tram station sans tram, the cable running over the gap to the other side where Saddler and Ashley must have gone.

Suspended from the ceiling by a dozen massive chains was some kind of…Seras wasn't sure what it was supposed to be actually. It was a large rectangular box, perhaps eighty meters in length and twenty wide. There was an opening on their end, accessible by a short, but probably harrowing jump across the deep pit.

The inside looked to be some kind of giant hamster playground with steel shutters and maze-like halls. At the end was another gap, this one impossible for even her to jump, although there was a great metal hook dangling halfway between the end of the structure and the other side of the chasm.

Seras ignored it, thinking she'd have to be a loon to use the hanging maze to cross instead of calling the tram. Even if they couldn't call it, shimmying across the cable seemed like a better option than waltzing into such an obvious deathtrap.

Leon bent down and picked something up out of a puddle and put it in his pocket. "Great," he said, disappointed. "Oh well, we got this far with it at least."

"What is it?" Seras asked, already knowing once Leon adjusted the buttons on his radio/tracker.

"Saddler must have spotted it, or it fell off. Either way, lets hope the road to Saddler is a straight one from here on in."

Her radio beeped, letting her know someone was trying to call. She turned it on and held it to her ear, Leon watching intently. "Seras," she said.

"I would like to commend you both," Saddler said over the radio. "I have had many enemies over the course of my lifetime, none of which have impressed me so much as you and Mr. Kennedy."

Seras's brow furrowed as Leon shook his head. "Thank you, Mr. Saddler," Seras said. "You're very polite, and I hate to be rude, but would you hand Ashley over to us and save us the trouble of taking her back by force?"

Shaking her head and mouthing curse words, she awaited Saddler's reply. This prompted a smile from Leon, despite his efforts to remain annoyed. "Ah, I think not," Saddler said. "Seeing as how you enjoy dispatching my loyal, and not so loyal, servants, I've decided to send you yet another playmate. The polite thing to do, Ms. Victoria, Mr. Kennedy, would be to die."

Seras tucked the radio back in her pocket and had no sooner begun to walk towards the tram, when the sound of falling rocks caught both their attentions. "What in the…" Leon said, looking up.

Ten meters from head to tail, crawling down the wall like some sort of giant bug, was a lizard sporting insectoid legs and partial body segments and the torso of an abnormally large man. The disturbingly human face glared at them both with large, bulging yellow eyes, flicking a massive swollen tongue.

Leon ran for the drop, leaping the gap between the ledge and the suspended maze. Not happy he had opted for the deathtrap, Seras bolted for it as well, leaping it much easier than she had intended and landing on the mesh ceiling.

The creature charged down the wall and jumped as well, diving through the lower doorway already vacated by Leon who's adrenaline had overridden any fatigue he might be feeling. Seras quickly reevaluated how well he was doing, and felt they might be in better shape than they looked.

Firing with the magnum down into the creature, she forced it to look up and snarl, a look of pure animal hatred emblazoned on its human face. Her slugs found its face, sending the usual mix of blood, meat and bone spattering in all directions.

The monster howled with pain and slapped at the ceiling with its long, muscular human arms, punching a section of mesh free. With animal speed and grace, it drew itself up through the hole and onto the ceiling with Seras.

An alarm began blaring, making Seras wonder what Leon had done bellow. Backing up, she fired on the creature's face, slowing its advance as it walked forward, swatting at the stinging bullets.

Suddenly, a third of rectangle maze released from its support chains, causing the entire section to plummet, nearly taking the creature with it. As it scrambled to keep from falling, Seras reloaded and backed up. She looked down to see Leon running towards a small control panel. "Leon!" she shouted, making him look up.

Her jerked his thumb towards the back of the maze. "Go! There doors down here are locked. It drops when you open them!"

At the very least, she supposed she was keeping the monster off Leon's back. Firing at its head and backing up, it finally learned to keep its forearms in front of its face, blocking her powerful shots and walking towards her.

The second platform dropped well after the creature and Seras were safely on the third; safe being a relative term, Seras thought. She also thought the creature was becoming a severe waste of bullets and decided to jump.

While the final, lone hook was well within her ability to leap, her stomach turned a back flip all the same as she sailed through the air, gripping the metal links with all her might. Even her keen eyes hadn't been able to see the bottom of the dark chasm, and a fall was the absolute last thing she wanted to have happen to her.

The chain shook, making her look down to see Leon, who had jumped onto the chain as well. His foot was planted in the hook on the bottom, saving him the need to cling to the chain for his life like Seras was doing.

She was glad to see the rest of the maze drop, taking the creature down with it, its futile attempt to jump made far too late, although Seras didn't like how close it actually came to the rock wall as it went out of sight. "Are you alright?" she called down to Leon.

"Fine," he said, out of breath. "Who builds stuff like this anyway?"

"Crazy people," she said. "Try shifting your weight so we can swing over."

"I've got a better idea," Leon said, wrapping his elbow around the chain and fiddling with his utility belt. He pulled something from the belt tied to a rope and swung it around, throwing it to the other side. "Grappling hook."

Using Leon's hook, once it caught on a rock, they managed their way onto solid ground. There was nothing on the other side but a steel door into the rock a stack of black acetylene tanks bound together by ropes; someone had been doing some welding.

Heading towards the door, they both stopped and turned, hearing scraping steps from the ledge. The creature crawled back up the cliff and wasted no time in coming after them. "Through the door," Seras said to Leon, as she broke for the acetylene tanks. Leon went through, assuming she would follow but realized too late she wasn't. Going back out the door would put him directly in the path of the monstrosity.

Seras bolted past the tanks, hoping they were full. As the monster stopped near the door Leon had gone through, she fired, putting a slug through its eye. The torso went limp and fell forward onto the ground. Thinking she wouldn't have to cause an explosion after all, she went right back to backing up as the parasite that kept the bizarre creature alive tore out of its back.

It was like a centipede with three meter long mandibles had taken the place of the creature's spine. It shook off the blood and fluid from its birth and neatly chewed the dead torso free, effectively replacing the human part of the creature with a completely insect one.

"Over here!" she shouted, shooting. "This way!"

Lumbering away from the door, the creature blindly made its way towards the sound of her voice on the other side of the small, black acetylene tanks, running into them and knocking them over. She began shooting with the magnum, knowing acetylene was a highly unstable gas, exploding under a mere 28 psi.

She regretted her plan as the tank ignited, killing the creature and sending a wave of heat and shrapnel flying towards her. Her only recourse was to hit the ground and flatten herself, covering her face.

"Seras!" Leon shouted, making her look up. "Are you alright?"

She stood, the force of the blast had been rough, but no shrapnel had struck her. "I'm fine," she said. "I didn't think the explosion would be that big."

"You almost caved in the tunnel through the door," Leon said, smiling at the dead creature, or what little remained of it. "We should leave before Saddler sends anymore of his pets out way."

"Agreed," Seras said, following Leon back through the door and down a tunnel.

**To be continued…**


	30. Chapter 30

Chapter Thirty

**Chapter Thirty.**

The tunnel curved up out onto the surface, giving Seras a glimpse of the night sky along with the moon. The path moved along the edge of a cliff which they stood next to for a quick moment, trying to get their bearings.

"I think we're on the other side of the island," Leon said. "But I'm not sure."

"At least the weather's cleared," Seras said, pulling her radio out and testing the signal. "I wonder if the radio is still jammed."

She adjusted the small knobs, taking the spare moment to enjoy the sound of the waves bellow and the night. She had always liked the night, even before she had become a vampire, but after her turn it always seemed to bring her a strange sense of peace greater than she had felt when alive.

"This is Seras, calling Hellsing. Come in, Hellsing."

There was a pause and then a scratchy. "Seras…this is Integra. Where in blazes have you been?"

"Sorry, the signal had been jammed earlier. We're on that nearby island, the one to the north, but I don't know what side."

Leon coughed, pointing to the sky, to the moon. "Oh," Seras said, her face reddening. "I mean, we're on a cliff near the moon side…if that helps."

"Good," Integra said. "What's your status otherwise?"

"Well," Seras said, looking back towards the islands interior. "I'm with Leon and Ashley was taken by Saddler…again."

"Again? Seras, stop mucking around and get the girl. If Saddler is that much of problem, kill the bastard. If the intelligence we've been gathering is correct, we're going to have to at some point anyway."

"What have you found out?" she asked.

"You're likely better informed than we are. Just know you're liable to run up against a small guerilla army. We'll send a chopper up ahead, this time one that won't go down so easily. Try and meet with it."

"Roger that," Seras said, wanting to wait for the chopper where she was, but knowing there wasn't time.

"Integra out," her radio crackled, ending the transmission.

"So maybe we'll get some backup," Leon said. "Things are looking up."

She imagined Alucard stepping off a helicopter, smiling at her, knowing she had been fighting a long, hard battle for most of the day and night. He'd probably say something like "You're hogging all the fun, Police Girl," using his old pet name for her. He had taken to calling her Seras more often, but still used the old name sometimes.

"I should've asked," she said to herself.

"Asked what?" Leon said, letting her catch up to him as he walked down the sandy hill which curved back into the rocks.

"What kind of help we might be getting. Knowing Integra, she'll be stingy with the backup."

"Sounds like a tough woman," Leon said. "Why do you work for her?"

Seras thought that was a very profound question. Since drinking Annette Birkin's blood six years prior, she had been free of any kind of metaphysical bond to Alucard, who was bound to Integra.

All had been aware she was free to do what she pleased, to stop hunting down vampires and other monsters and do go out and do whatever it was she liked. Hellsing wouldn't bother her about it; she didn't fear being hunted down by the organization, not because she had a personal connection, but because Hellsing didn't waste its time on harmless vampires.

"I always wanted to be a police officer," Seras said as they entered some low ruins covered in rough sand. "My father was a cop, and one day some men came to our home and killed my parents…" Kill was a slight understatement, but Seras didn't care to think about it. "I was shot, but lived only to be put in an orphanage where I was a bit of a hard case."

Leon laughed. "You? A hard case? I don't believe it."

"I once hit a kid in the head with a rock for taking a toy from me," she said with false pride.

"A career criminal in the making," Leon said.

"Anyway, it was there I decided I wanted to be a cop like my da'. It was all I thought about and all I ever wanted to do. I made it onto a pretty elite squad, but it wasn't long before we were called to a church to take down a priest who had supposedly gone mad."

"A mad priest?" Leon said, sweeping the area with his gun while Seras covered him.

"He turned out to be a vampire. He'd killed nearly a dozen cops by the time we got there and then killed everyone in my squad, saving me for last. That was when Alucard, the vampire that made me showed up."

"So the priest killed you and Alucard, or whatever his name is, brought you back?"

She hesitated, not sure if she should tell Leon the details. Shrugging, she decided that it was her story to tell, plus he already knew of Hellsing anyway. "Not exactly. He asked me if I was a virgin and when I said yes, he blew a hole through me along with the vampire who was holding me from behind. He then asked me as I was dying if I wanted to live…I said yes."

That made Leon turn his head, his eyebrow raised. "So he killed you? And you still hang around these people?"

Seras was at a loss to explain it. She opted for the pat answer she had been using on herself. "The priest would have killed me in the end, likely worse. Alucard…I guess you'd have to know him to understand it, but it's just the way he sees things. Integra wasn't too happy about it at first…"

"Anyway, why do you still work for Hellsing? Seems like you got press ganged in the worst way."

They had entered the ruins and made their way down stairs and through ruined towers, now coming to a square pit with a metal door that looked to open mechanically. "It's like I'm still a cop," she said as Leon pulled the lever on the door, causing it to open automatically. "I just go after a very specific type of criminal and the rules are a little different."

"For how long?" Leon asked, pointing his gun through the door, seeing it led into a narrow valley and up a hill.

"What do you mean?"

"You're a vampire…eternal life and youth spent on police work? There must be something you want to do with your life that isn't this kind of thing."

Another profound question she didn't have a good answer for. "I don't think I'll ever quit helping people," she said. "Maybe a vacation now and again, see the world, but I can't imagine doing anything else."

"Same here," Leon said. "I might teach this stuff when I retire…if I live that long."

They cut the chatter as they headed up the hill through the crevice. Seras could see a water tower above a rocky crag and then tents and sandbags upon rounding the bend.

Both crouched when they saw the crowd of soldiers standing next to a tent, one with an RPG launcher, the others with flails and shields. They hadn't seen Seras or Leon, and didn't seem to be expecting them.

The whir of helicopter blades was picked up by Seras's ears before anyone else's. When the soldiers heard it, they scattered, the man with the RPG raising it to his shoulder and searching the sky.

"Not this time," Seras said, taking aim with the pistol, an impossible shot for a human at their distance. The bullet struck the man in the ear, making the RPG launcher dip forward as it fired. The explosion sent pieces of its owner along with those around him flying.

The water tower began to wobble as the helicopter noise reached its peak. Thinking the explosion had somehow damaged the tower, Seras was surprised to see an Apache gunship hovering behind the tower as it fell, seemingly pushed or shot by the chopper.

Her radio blared, prompting her to pick it up and push the button. "This is Mike," the voice said. "AKA, air support. You down there?"

"Yes," Seras said, ecstatic now that the cavalry had arrived. She had felt like a lost cause behind enemy lines for far too long.

"Good. I'll clear you a path."

Seras and Leon exchanged looks, grinning a little like kids on Christmas. "It's about time," Leon said. "This two man army stuff was getting a little old."

With their pistols drawn and ready, they followed the helicopter's path of destruction up the hill and through the flaming camp. Seras opted to forgo her pistol in favor of her machete, as nearly every soldier they came across was too wounded to warrant bullets. The ones that were well enough to swing a flail or hold a knife were shot by Leon.

With the camp in ruins, Mike, the chopper pilot, radioed again as Seras and Leon passed through the large shutter door the base had been guarding. Seeing the ruins of what had been setup made them both realize the helicopter had been a necessity, not a mere plus.

"See you on the other side," he said.

"Thanks a lot, Mike," Seras said, running through the short, wide tunnel and out onto the other side where there was another seaside cliff. The chopper hovered over their heads for a moment and Seras's radio crackled once more.

"Heads up. Present from the boss," Mike said.

A wooden crate was pushed from the side of the helicopter and hit the ground behind some sandbags with a loud thud. Mike flew the chopper out over the cliff and turned it to face them. Seras could see him waving and waved back along with Leon. "Thanks again," she said into the radio.

"You can thank me by letting me buy you a drink. I know a good bar in…"

His voice was drowned out by the whoosh of a rocket. It flew in through the open side door of the chopper and exploded, making the machine promptly drop into the sea. "No!" Seras screamed, hearing Leon curse as well. "Mike!" she ran to the edge of the cliff, past the crate, and looked down to see the burning wreckage.

Her radio crackled and she picked it up, gritting her teeth with rage. Saddler's voice emanated from the speaker, making her work to resist the urge to hurl it off the cliff. "One good turn deserves another," Saddler said. "Or so they say." His voice was incredibly patronizing and arrogant, making her want to silence it forever. "You've killed enough of my servants and now I have deprived you of a comrade. Turn back now, along with Mr. Kennedy, or it is likely he will be the next one who dies."

The tone was that of a father giving sound advice and she decided that it was the most annoying thing the man did. "The next person to die is going to be you, Saddler," she said, no trace of good humor in her voice. "I'm tired of playing your games. Make your peace with God."

Saddler laughed. "A vampire telling me to make peace with God…perhaps I will attempt to override your will once more. I think you would make a valuable assistant…so would Mr. Kennedy, although he still needs to be gifted with Las Plagas, does he not?"

"Go to hell," she said, turning off the radio. She would switch it back on later in case someone needed to radio in, but for now didn't want to hear Saddler's voice.

"Well that stinks," Leon said, walking over to the crate. "Lets see what Mike left for us."

Furious, she hacked the crate open with her machete and looked over the items inside. There were four full clips for her 9mm and a short combat shotgun with three magazines. She had been hoping to find her beloved Harkonnen cannon ready for her to assemble and load with rounds, but instead found her Hellsing uniform, the blue one. Looking down at her torn, filthy jeans and vest, she smelled them, wrinkling her nose. "I think I'm going to change," she said.

"Into that?" Leon asked, looking at the obviously short blue skirt and tight fitting collared coat. "Is that even comfortable?"

"More than it looks," she said. "The only downside is the length of the skirt."

"I hate to tell you this, but there's been a large hole in the butt of your pants since Rip," Leon said, smiling.

Her hand shot to her backside, feeling bare skin where Rip's Magic Bullet had torn through her buttock and thigh. Her wound had healed, but not the hole in her jeans. "W-when did you know?" she said, looking aghast at Leon.

"That's classified," he said. "Just change so we can go."

Backing towards a lone, wide column, she glared at Leon and tried not to trip or show her backside to him again. "Men," she grumbled, changing into her blue Hellsing uniform. "Take the shotgun," she shouted. "And count yourself lucky I'm letting you have it."

She could hear him chuckle and was forced to smile a little.

**To be continued…**


	31. Chapter 31

Chapter Thirty-One

**Chapter Thirty-One.**

Old columns framed a set of stone steps leading downhill, ending at another steel door which Seras had to pry open. Beyond the door were more concrete walls and a set of steps leading up to a security checkpoint.

A dozen soldiers carrying wooden shields and flails, backed up by six with crossbows standing atop a scaffold greeted them as they gained the top of the stairs. "Cover me," Leon said, jogging forward with the combat shotgun.

Seras began shooting at the crossbowmen with her pistol, aiming for their bows so as to keep their arrows off Leon while his shotgun destroyed the shields of the soldiers on the ground, his follow-up blasts pulping their heads.

With the bows disabled in short order, Seras finished off the last two men with shields who had forced Leon to back up, even in the face of relentless point blank shotgun fire.

Refreshing her clip, she kept her eye on the six men who were climbing down ladders that lead up to squat guard towers. Once they were over the sandbags that walled off the towers, they drew batons from their belts that began crackling with electricity.

She shot two that weren't wearing metal helmets in the head. Both went down, leaving Leon to fire at two others, hitting them in the legs. Drawing her magnum with her free hand, Seras put two magnum shells in the necks of the ones still standing, all but decapitating them. Her pistol popped the parasites as they emerged, while Leon pumped shotgun shells into the two he had grounded until they simply died.

They didn't think they had time to check the towers, so they made their way quickly through the checkpoint, through a security shutter that took them down a sloping path back into a facility.

The first thing Seras saw in the modern looking chamber, which reminded her distinctly of Umbrella's laboratory, was a large stasis chamber raised up in the center. Inside was Ashley Graham, her eyes closed with her blond hair falling over her eyes.

Next to her was Saddler, a cold look on his face as he took slow steps towards them. Taken off guard, Seras could only hope that Leon would take the cue to rescue Ashley while she did what she could to distract Saddler.

"I'm afraid this game must come to an end," Saddler said, still making his way forward, heedless of the amount of firepower being aimed in his direction.

"I agree," Seras said, opening fire, aiming for Saddler's head. He brought his forearm up faster than Seras could track and took the bullets in the arm. They tore his robe and spattered small amounts of blood, but it was like shooting unfeeling clay with a BB gun.

He straightened his arm and Seras felt her body freeze. Her hands were working hard to bring both her guns up under her chin and pull the triggers, but she fought them, fought Saddler, to a draw.

Vaguely, she was aware that Saddler was showing signs of strain, his normal cool demeanor finally broken. It was a small victory, one she focused on to keep herself from blowing the top of her own head off.

Leon had taken the hint and gone around to open the stasis chamber Ashley was being kept in. Seras, having partially pointed her magnum back at Saddler, was able to keep his attention for just long enough. The tank opened with a hiss, making Saddler bark a sharp sound of anger and throw Seras into the wall by some invisible force.

Stars exploded across her vision as the back of her head whacked the wall. Shaking it, she saw a long, thick tentacle snake out from beneath Saddler's robe and make its way towards Leon.

Ashley looked to be regaining consciousness, but was still leaning on Leon, making it hard for him to fire on Saddler with the shotgun. "Damn," Seras said, getting up. Saddler wasn't messing around. It was likely one of them, probably Leon from the way things looked, would die.

Machine gun fire from the catwalk above peppered the tentacle, which reacted much worse to being shot that Saddler's arm had by Seras. It retracted, letting Leon open fire.

Ada, her red dress swaying, moved across the walk, firing with her TMP. Seras joined in, the three of the now pelting Saddler with bullets, shredding his robe and seemingly causing him little discomfort.

Leon's shotgun clicked empty and he grabbed Ashley by the arm, dragging her towards the door on the left side of the room. Saddler turned, moving to cut them off, but Seras was on her feet and running. She cleared the distance between her and Saddler faster than any human could, and gave him a hard shove in the back with her shoulder, sending him sprawling forward.

"Go!" Ada shouted. "I've got something for him!"

Seras needed to reload and think of a plan, so she took Ada's advice and ran with Leon and Ashley through the door and down a long hallway. The clatter of steel drums, followed by an explosion from behind made Seras look back to see flames in the doorway they had come through.

As fast as they could, without speaking, they made their way deeper into the facility until they came to a room that made Seras stop and shout. "There it is! The machine Luis told us about. That has to be it."

It was a dentist's chair with some kind of laser rigged to point into the chest of whoever was sitting in the seat. A control panel with a mercifully simple looking control scheme was next to the chair, connected with wires. "How do we run it?" Leon asked.

Ashley, who had been looking a little groggy, scanned the machine and placed her hand on a clipboard resting nearby. "Maybe this is it," she said, holding it out to Leon.

He looked the clipboard over. "Yep, directions…looks like Luis wrote them. According to this, it's kind of painful."

"I'll go first," Seras said. "If something goes wrong, I'll take the brunt of it."

Ashley seemed to be more than fine with Seras testing the machine, even helping her adjust the seat. "Alright," Leon said, once Seras was sitting in the chair. "That laser thing is going to zap the parasite with a concentrated beam of radiation…I think. Ready?"

Looking at the laser, or whatever it really was, Seras nodded, knowing they had no choice. Leon pushed a series of buttons, consulting the clipboard as he went. The machine hummed to life and abruptly shot a white, blinding beam into Seras's chest, leaving her clothes and flesh unharmed, but sending bolts of pain radiating throughout her body.

She clenched her teeth as hard as she could and squeezed her fingers tight so as not to scream. She didn't want Ashley being any more nervous than she had to be, but that thought was quickly eclipsed by how ungodly painful the procedure was. Normally, her blood healing too the edge off, but this seemed to be poking at her nervous system, causing no real damage to her, but strumming her pain receptors like a guitar.

When it was finally over, she could feel her blood moving in her chest, perhaps metabolizing the dead parasite. She got out of the chair with a groan, holding her stomach. "Ouch," she said. "At least it's dead…I thought me being a vampire might have…I don't know, it doesn't matter now."

"How do you feel? Can Ashley, uh, survive it?" Leon asked.

Using every power of self-perception she had developed, she nodded. "It caused me no damage, just the parasite. It still hurts though."

"I'll take it," Ashley said. "I just want it out."

As Ashley got into the seat, Seras wondered where the dead parasite would go once it ceased to be. Ashley was a human, her body wasn't simply going to absorb a giant dead bug.

The machine turned on before she could ponder the dilemma further, and as Ashley writhed in pain, Seras looked away to see that there was a green computer screen showing an X-ray of Ashley's chest with the Plaga parasite in its death throes. As it spasmed and died, the machine shut down, showing the parasite dissolve into liquid near Ashley's stomach.

Ashley was breathing heavy and Seras wondered if she might vomit up the parasite refuse. She didn't and instead got up off the seat and coughed as Leon looked her over. Traces of tears were in her eyes, but she seemed to be recovering quickly.

"Holy crap," Ashley said, wincing.

"Lucky me," Leon said, taking the papers from the clipboard and pocketing them. "So, what now? I saw Ada, but I have no idea how she's doing now."

Unless Ada had some grand trick up her sleeve, Seras didn't think even she was tough enough to defeat Saddler by herself. "I'd like to go back and help her somehow," Seras said. "But this might be our only chance to get Ashley away once and for all."

Leon bit his lip, clearly not happy about leaving Ada. "I guess…you're right. Come on then, let's get out of here."

Free of parasites, the three of them ran out of the room, hoping to find a way off the island as soon as possible.

**To be continued…**


	32. Chapter 32

Chapter Thirty-Two

**Chapter Thirty-Two.**

As it happened, there was a way out of the small lab and back outside down a sandy path between high cliffs towards a partially constructed helipad. Seras thought it looked more like an oil derrick, but decided not to think about nautical architecture terms as she spied an elevator with a boat symbol painted on the door.

They ran to the elevator and watched as nothing happened when Leon pushed the button to call it up. A red light did, however, come on informing them that there was no power to the lift.

"Why do the elevators never work?" Leon asked, angry.

"I don't know, but there should be a law," Seras said, looking over to another service lift, seeing that the light on it was green, but that it only went up. "Wait here. I'll go up there and see if I can't raise a chopper or find a power supply. I'll radio you if we're leaving by air."

Too tired to argue, Leon nodded as Seras ran over to the lift and rode it up to the giant, half finished platform. She pulled out her radio and began transmitting to Integra. "This is Seras. Come in."

"Integra. Seras, report." Her calm voice made Seras feel slightly better. Since leaving the lab, Seras had begun to feel rushed, as though things were boiling to a head and if everything was going to go wrong, it would be soon.

"We have Ashley, parasite free. Send a chopper to the unfinished deck on the west side of the island." The sun had come up, making Seras's eyes hurt, but it was still low on the horizon and wouldn't truly be annoying for a while yet.

"Try not to let this one get shot down," Integra said.

The lift came to a stop and Seras began looking for a power supply, just in case the chopper did get shot down, again. Instead, she saw a familiar purple robe standing beneath a woman in a red dress, tied with roped and hanging from a crane.

Ada picked her head up and looked at Seras, giving the impression of a half hearted shrug. She didn't look badly injured, but Seras's main focus was now on Saddler who had regained his sense of friendly smugness.

"So it seems you are the beautiful heroine destined to save the day…although I must say, while you are a twist on the typical cliché, you are still a cliché. This is no story Ms. Victoria, and this is where you and your friends die."

Before she could retort, Saddler threw back his hood and closed his eyes. Opening mouth impossibly wide, he looked at her through a large yellow eye that was popping out of his mouth.

She watched in horror and disgust as Saddler began to show his true form. As the eye emerged even farther from his mouth, rolling his head open and down his chest as though it had been a shirt. Hoping it would stop soon, she was disappointed as segmented legs clawed their way out of his collar and gained purchase on the ground as they grew in size.

While Saddler was changing, Seras took the opportunity to fire a 9mm shell at the rope suspending Ada. She hadn't been standing directly beneath Saddler like Seras had previously thought, but was beneath a truck bed holding folded tarps; the perfect place for a landing.

The rope was broken by the bullet and soon frayed enough to break, allowing Ada to hit the tarps softly and roll of the back, already half free from the bonds. Not wanting Saddler to complete his transformation, Seras pulled the magnum and fired in him with both weapons, the bullets pinging off the hard exoskeleton his legs had developed over his seemingly useless human body.

By the time it was finished, Saddler resembled a giant daddy-long-legs spider, with only four crablike legs, a dangling human body at its abdomen, and a tri-horned head at the end of a long, prehensile neck topped with a yellow eye. The legs, Seras notices, also sported eyes right bellow the knee joints.

Saddler had definitely grown bigger and as he scuttled towards Seras with the intent of impaling her with a sharp leg, she wondered just how she was going to kill him. Shooting for the eyes had been working so far, so she kept with it and tried to pop the large central eye.

It blinked when she shot, covering itself with a thick eyelid. Saddler didn't seem to need his central eye, and kept moving forward, stabbing at her with one of his sharp, crab legs. She jumped to avoid it, moving towards the Saddler monstrosity and running as fast as she could beneath it, past Saddler's dangling human form.

Bolting across the mesh floor, she wanted to put as much distance between her and Saddler as she could, partially to give her time to think of something. One idea was the narrow footbridge leading from the platform they were on to another one just over a gap reaching down to the sea bellow. There was a control panel on either side, and Seras crossed it, thinking to drop Saddler as he crossed.

Saddler was faster than she had anticipated in his new form and had scuttled over to the bridge just as Seras was halfway across. She heard something smash and then felt the bridge drop from the other end. Her feet scrambled for purchase and she threw her right arm around the railing, dropping her pistol into the sea bellow.

Using the rungs as a ladder, she climbed up the downed walkway and gained her footing as a shadow passed over her. Saddler hit the ground in front of her with a colossal thud, vibrating the metal ground beneath her.

She ran to the left towards a crane control platform, relying on her blood to lend her legs power and speed. She could hear Saddler behind her and jumped up into the raised areas, hoping to make it hard for her to be trampled.

Saddler ran up to the raised control stand and stabbed at her with a crab leg. She moved to the side, letting him punch a hole in the short steel wall behind her as she fell on her backside. Scrambling to get up, her arm hit a lever, activating some sort of machine.

Getting up, she saw the crane controlled by the panel she was near swing its load of steel girders out over the drop and back around, straight into the Saddler monster's side, knocking it over.

Stunned, it didn't think to blink when she fired on the central eye. Her bullets slammed into it, sending yellow eye fluid squirting out and making the creature squeal from some hidden orifice.

She took the opportunity to jump over Saddler's wounded form, placing a foot on his back before leaping a second time to the ground behind. Running back towards the other end, she was surprised and pleased to see Ada appear from behind a stack of beams, shouldering an RPG.

"Duck!" Ada shouted, aiming the weapon straight at Seras. She hit the ground and for the second time in twenty-four hours, felt a rocket pass over her back and explode behind her.

As unnerving as it was, the sight of bits of Saddler falling around her was a beautiful thing. She rolled onto her back and looked at the bubbling mess that had been her enemy, the only thing making it unpleasant was the rising sun.

"Sorry about this," Ada said, making Seras turn just in time to look down the barrel of Ada's TMP as it fired. She felt the rounds strike her face, caving in her cheeks and shattering her teeth. Following the resulting wave of pain, was darkness.

When she woke up, she was being jostled and her head ached. "W-wha?" she said, picking her head up and seeing the steel floor begin to spin.

She was being carried on someone's back, who set her down. Blinking, she saw the faces of Leon and Ashley, both looking part astounded and part concerned. Ashley had tears in her eyes. "You're alive," Leon said.

Holding her head, she pulled her hand back to see it coated in blood. "What happened?"

"I'm not sure," Leon said. "It looked like you were shot…what is that thing over there? It looks dead."

"That was Saddler," Seras said, remembering. "Ada and I got him with an RPG she found. She shot me with her machine gun when I turned my back."

"And took the sample," Leon said, sighing. "That's not good, but we can't go after her. Can you walk?"

She stood and needed Ashley to help steady her, but her blood was doing its work well enough. "I-I'm fine. I radioed for a helicopter."

As if on cue, the whir of a chopper filled their ears and became louder. Covering her eyes from the sun, Seras felt the wind of the blades as the chopper touched down on the metal platform near Saddler's sludgy corpse.

The three of them boarded quickly, wanting nothing more than to get their feet off the miserable patch of ground that had caused them so much trouble. On the chopper, which wasted no time in leaving, the pilot likely being aware of the first two chopper's fates, Leon and Ashley were seen to quickly by Hellsing medics.

A balding man with grey hair sat across from Seras with a stern, yet proud look on his face. "Good work Victoria," he said in a deep English voice.

"Thank you, Captain Ferguson," she said, sitting back in the helicopter's uncomfortable seat and feeling as though a massive weight had been removed from her chest. She looked to Leon who was lying on his back, his clothes mostly off while the medics dressed his wounds. She couldn't help be impressed by how uninjured he had seemed.

Ashley was being treated for her minor scrapes by one medic. She smiled at Seras, prompting her to smile back and yawn. "I think it's my bed time," she said, letting her head fall back.

"Don't let the bed bugs bite," Ashley said, as Seras drifted off to sleep under the roar of the chopper's engine.

**To be continued…**


	33. Chapter 33

Chapter Thirty-three

**Chapter Thirty-three.**

Overworked, low on blood, and with the sun blazing in the sky, Seras had fallen into a coma-like sleep. In her dream, an old, fat man was sitting in a lawn chair sipping a piña colada and looking very relaxed.

"Lazy," Seras said, standing in front of him, arms akimbo.

He shrugged and looked aloof. "Left behind…again," he said.

"W-what!?" she said, abashed. "That sort of thing isn't up to me! It was Sir Integra's order…" He sipped his drink loudly and pretended to ignore her. "Oh, fine," she said. "I'm sorry I left you behind, but you're simply too big to be lugged around to combat a hostage situation."

He looked down at his large stomach and pouted. "You're mean."

"What!? I am not! You're…" her rant was interrupted by the ground becoming a sinkhole and sending her spiraling downward and up at the same time. It was an odd, yet familiar feeling, and soon she was awake, looking at the lid of her coffin and quickly forgetting the dream.

She opened the coffin and got out, seeing that she was still in her clothes from the mission. On the desk she kept in her room was an official looking note telling her to attend a debriefing in the next hour. She used the time to shower and change her uniform; also to drink a package of medical blood, as she was quite hungry.

Seras was the only person in Integra's office, aside from Sir Integra herself. She sat at her desk smoking a cigar, looking neither pleased nor upset. "How are you feeling?" Integra asked, once Seras had seated herself after saluting.

"I'm fine," Seras said. "The mission was successful and I'm clean, rested and fed."

"Glad to hear it," Integra said. "We heard most of it from Kennedy who, by the way, will be fine. His wounds were more severe than he had been letting on. Ashley Graham is on her way back to the United States pending a full medical examination."

"The parasite inside her is dead," Seras said. "We found a machine that killed it. They melt when they die, so it should pass through her system."

Integra paused, slowly blowing smoke through her nostrils. "I don't think it's the parasite they're concerned about…it's you."

"Me?"

"The Hellsing Organization, and by extension, the British government, is the only group in the world, unless you count Nazi Germany and that group of Millennium freaks, who have any real expertise or experience with vampires. I told them that there was no chance that you're blood had…infected her, nor was there any possibility that she had been implanted with a freak chip…not with the amount of time they had her. They're not convinced, so they're examining her thoroughly."

Seras looked stricken, imagining Ashley being probed physically and psychologically by strange men in white coats. "I was hoping I would be able to talk to her once more."

Integra cocked an eyebrow and put her dying cigar out. "Relax, Seras, she's the daughter of the president, they're not going to dissect her. However, I don't think you'll be able to talk to her anytime soon. You're a walking piece of classified information."

Seras's fingers twiddled and she looked off to the side. "About that…"

"Yes, I know," Integra said. "By now, the Americans are keenly aware of your abilities and shortcomings. I'm sure Ashley and Kennedy are decent enough people, but the fact is they're going to tell the Americans everything they know about you. On top of what they already do know, they'll have quite a wealth of information by the end."

"I'm sorry," Seras said. "I just didn't have the option of keeping it a secret."

"I knew that when I sent you in. Never mind it though. The Americans aren't our enemies and now they owe us one. Hell, they owed us for Umbrella but they're not going to admit it."

Her head picked up suddenly. "Ada…a woman named Ada Wong was there. Leon must have told you, but she left with the parasite sample and I think…"

"She works for Umbrella?" Integra finished. "You're quite astute. Walter and I suspect the same thing. Did you know that Umbrella had a special section?"

Seras nodded. "They were mostly a pharmaceutical company, but it was their bioweapons division that caused all the trouble."

Integra plucked another cigar from a pack on her desk and lit it. "The bioweapons division still exists; called White Umbrella, it seems to have survived the main company's destruction."

Seras slammed her fist on the chair's arm and gritted her teeth, a sudden anger flooding her system. "What…no…" She had killed them. Killed the board members, the decision makers, the ones ultimately responsible for the murder of Raccoon, of Sherry Birkin.

"Calm down," Integra said evenly. "We punished the people that deserved it and nearly exterminated the entire organization, White Umbrella included. We're just not quite done yet."

She breathed, even though she didn't need to, and felt better. Not good, but better. A Hellsing's work was never quite done, and she knew that. "Sorry, sir, I'm alright. What now? What about Millennium's involvement?"

Integra smiled. "Congratulations on exterminating Rip van Winkle. We'll kill them all eventually. As for the rest of them, this seems to be their typical modus operandi: loosely align with some two-bit warmonger and or crackpot and provide them with support in furthering their warlike ways. It wouldn't shock me to learn they're working with Umbrella now as well."

"I got the impression Saddler didn't really need their help," Seras said.

"We did some digging on him, actually. He was little more than a megalomaniacal despot with a glorified tapeworm. He found common ground with a bunch of other crazies and then…well, you what the result was."

"So what now?" Seras asked.

"We're going to dig up what we can on White Umbrella and track Millennium's movements. It's likely the two will intersect. Alucard was sent in after you to do mop-up, but the parasites, along with their hosts, seemed to have died."

She had to pick her next words carefully. "May I ask why Alucard wasn't sent in sooner?"

"Simple," Integra said. "If we make him our crutch, our one recourse, he will turn from being our strength to our weakness."

"Come again?"

"Do you follow boxing?"

"No."

"Neither do I," Integra said. "But I do know this much about it. If you've got a powerful right hook that knocks the opponent out every time you throw it, and you use it every single time, eventually you're enemies will learn to block and counterpunch. Nothing I know of can stop Alucard, but someday someone will figure it out. To keep that day from coming, we'll play him close to our vest."

All she could do was nod slowly. Tactically it made sense and complaining about it made her sound whiney and weak. Being Hellsing's official workhorse also made her feel good, if a little worn out and used. "I see. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to complain."

"Apology accepted," Integra said. "You're the better tool for the job in some cases, as you have a certain amount of finesse that he doesn't."

"Thank you, sir."

"You're dismissed," Integra said. "And by the way, I have no problems with you sending letters to Kennedy or even Graham, provided you don't say too much. I understand you still maintain correspondence with Valentine and Oliveira?"

She did, but the contact was spotty. She was still expecting a reply from Carlos. He had been mulling over joining Hellsing, him being a professional mercenary. Jill's letters were less frequent, but last Seras heard, she had joined up with the remaining STARS membership and they were seeking to bring Umbrella employees who had not been arrested or killed to justice. Perhaps their goals would intersect soon. "Yes, I do. Speaking of that, we might have some things to discuss later."

"I'm certain of it," Integra said. "Just be sure to keep your messages free of classified information. If they were ever intercepted by the press…"

"I know," Seras said, realizing Integra was allowing her to take a great risk for the sake of her personal life. "I'm going to go find Alucard."

"Carry on then," Integra said.

Seras stood, saluted, and left the room. She didn't know what she was going to say to Alucard exactly but she was sure he would want to hear all the details of her adventure, like it had been some kind of vacation. Telling him about Raccoon had been hard, but it had worked as a kind of therapy for her. This time, six years later, she didn't feel the same way as she had. Luis, a good man had died, along with a large number of innocent rural folk, but the event hadn't changed her at the core like Raccoon had.

Thinking about that, the fact that she hadn't changed much since leaving for that village the first time, made her wonder. Had a disaster of epic proportions simply rolled off her back? Not quite. She was saddened by Luis's loss and she felt bad for the victims of Las Plagas, but the sorrow wasn't as deep.

Asking Alucard when he stopped caring and became a monster came to mind, but she knew he had grown up in a different time, in a different sort of place. For all intents and purposes, he had always been a monster. The only other person she might talk to about it was Walter, and he had received the nickname Angel of Death at the age of fourteen.

She veered off and went to her room, thinking she might pick up a nice funny book and tell Alucard about her adventure later, after she forgot that she was the only person she knew who was becoming a monster and still remembered what it was like to be human.

**The end.**


End file.
